Trip Report
Little Barrier Island
– 4 November 2006
20 of us spent a day on LBI yesterday (4 Nov) - cracker of a day with light northerly and fine conditions. Left Leigh at 8.30AM. Very quiet on the crossing with NO fluttering shearwaters, white-faced terns off Leigh, a little flurry of white-faced stormies about halfway across, a number of gannets (but not the huge numbers of the previous week), a few flesh-footed shearwaters, about 5 Cook's petrels and then one NZ Fur Seal (with a blue penguin about 20m away). Pied shags and black-backed gulls at LBI. Once we'd completed quarantine and orientation on shore we spent the next four hours doing a slow amble up the Thumb Track and down Waipawa Track before ending by crossing the flats back to the DOC ranger station. A lot of bird activity with long-tailed cuckoos (and whiteheads) in abundance; a few shining cuckoos (and grey warblers); stitchbirds; saddlebacks everywhere and noisy; a couple of kokako near the ranger's house; kaka everywhere and very noisy; red-crowned parakeets; tomtits; NZ robin (heard); NZ fantails; NZ pigeons (plenty); sacred kingfishers; welcome swallows and yellowhammers. Back at the ranger's station Pete and Helen showed us tuatara (about half will be released back into the wild next week - into an area where a 'wild' tuatara was found a few weeks back, the first seen for many years) and a weta-punga in a flowering cabbage tree. Left the island about 5PM and had a few more seabirds on the way back (about 50 fleshies courtesy of a fishing boat); Cook's petrels; white-faced stormies; ONE fluttering shearwater; gannets and terns close to Leigh.
A visit to Hauturu should be on everyone's wish list of places to visit - a truly special place - high, rugged, densely forested (including kauri; hard beech; rata; wonderful nikau groves with puriri, and pohutukawa which was just coming into flower), birds in abundance and a great place to tramp the tracks (several are open to the public). It was the first nature reserve established in NZ and with the progressive eradication of predators (first cats, then rats two years back) goes from strength to strength (the breeding success of Cook's petrels in the last couple of seasons being testament to this).
Landing is by permit only - contact DOC Warkworth Area Office. Best done as a group (given the cost of the boat charter or water taxi) for which you'll need an accredited supervisor (Tim Lovegrove, Simon Fordham, Tony and Jenny Enderby and myself) maximum 20 including supervisors. It is possible to get there on your own or in small groups but you still need a permit.
The Hauturu Supporters is worth joining - working parties provide the opportunity to stay over.
Happy birding
Chris Gaskin
Pterodroma Pelagics
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