Day 313: November 9th – Departing Queenstown

Another spectacular sunny and warm day

       We’ve spent close to three weeks in Australia and New Zealand and have experienced a sum total of approximately 2 hours of precipitation.  In spite of the fact that we’ve have been in temperate rain forests for a good part of the trip, Meteora, the goddess of weather, has been more than kind.  Sunny days make for good photo-ops and I can’t even begin to describe the superb conditions we’ve had. 

           We’ll fly back to Auckland for our last night of the journey, so I made a quick trip out to the Queenstown Botanical Gardens to check on the avian life and hopefully get a few more photos.  The gardens were beautiful, but it was the waterfront of Queenstown Bay on Lake Wakatipu that provided the most birdlife.

       As I walked down the boardwalk and came onto the beach, I noticed two birds which looked obviously different from any that I had seen here during the past two days.  Through the binoculars, 

I made them out to be Australasian crested grebes, a bird I had marked as a target since reviewing the field guides.  The pair came in fairly close and with the light at my back were in perfect position to be captured by the camera.  Some times things just come together with a minimal amount of effort on the part of the photographer.

       The second bird to pose for me was a small flock of New Zealands only diving duck, the Scaup.  These birds look very similar to our two North American scaups and behave in like fashion as well.  It’s nice when you are in a foreign land and can easily identify a bird by its similarity to those that are already in your mind’s eye.

        Another bird that I already had on our trip list but had failed to capture the “ideal” image  of was the Black-billed gull.  My first views were several days ago in Milford Sound, but they were distant and the images were not satisfactory.  Today, however, the birds were obviously “city birds”, birds used to having humans close by.  I was able to walk up and photograph these diminutive little gulls from a distant of several feet with no problem. 

       Finally, in the gardens, I heard a song that has become quite familiar…a lovely warbling crisp clear song of the Chaffinch.  I’m amazed at how many of these birds are around.  They are as common as our House sparrows, but in my opinion much more handsome.

       Unfortunately, time is running short for our visit to Queenstown and it is time to head back to the hotel and the coach for our ride the tha airport.  From there, it’s on to our departure point from New Zealand, Auckland.  I have made a promise to myself that we will return to this magical place.