A crisp cool clear
day
It’s a great day to be out on
the water today as the winds out of the cool south have continued to blow the
foul weather out of the area and have brought a crisp clear day to the southern
island. We’ll begin the day
with a cruise out of Havelock onto the Pelorus Sound to see an active mussel
farm and enjoy the gorgeous scenery along the way.
On our way out to the farming
waters, we passed a number of shore birds working the shallows of the
sound. Several new birds including
several new shags were found and properly identifying them proved to be a
chore. Nonetheless, we are pretty
sure that we have it correct now and came up with the following species.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB1ff07Uqh88cAioj0pXXhFUCJYlmVcX0XU1kEVupbOeMivZgci2Sgxk0PgjU86PDCuKTGNtUH8xAvdr_6aaI4SsvS4ZZneGoxAJ7qUcXX7sU-v179X_d1bd_GWdGVuOdOn0yeGOua0J4/s320/Pied+shag-Milford+Sound-11-5-12+425.jpg)
Similar in appearance but lacking
the yellow markings of the face, the Little shag has a shorter bill. Although preferring fresh water, they
do show up in shallow marine environs.
We also had Spotted shags which were too distant to record decent
images. Likewise, other waders
were found far out and could be identified with the bins but were hard to
capture with the camera. Still, we
did manage to get a good enough shot of the Variable oystercatcher as it took
off from the shoreline and flew out towards the boat. The Variable version of the bird is much less common than
the South Island Pied form but was identidied by its total black plumage.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzuAEasIRC6NC_S17yJYK-WmTD8aHYp4fO2LQi7tUyi9mLSmUdxPMbIr1qBEFQC7LfWLQvMPwXIG0wjWq8KvMXPMFCDxHoc5xlncfY7e45hdyVPQQHUewDQCkUBqZZW4FooNzB-CM_nh4/s400/Mussel+farm-Milford+Sound-11-5-12+435.jpg)
On the return trip
under sunny skies, we spotted
several more additions to the New Zealand list. Among these was the very common White-faced heron. This bird is the most common of all
herons in New Zealand. It seems
that as common as they are, they are slqays just out of cameral range. This one was at least close enough to
give us an image suitable for identification purposes and we’ll take what we
get.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8sVMhJLUCx4UKVo2TOYYG4czcxiRWR1Qw9dcQG5SF9_PlTYqK-ITsPjf4SZXxwzJJvz-lM-nnLalhAdZ7lRmfqZ8ZOI3FcoX7qQaqoqBQUVKGWQ_LikAmM9DmGAo3n1nx7lgXCDPpEN8/s320/White-faced+heron-Milford+Sound-11-5-12+423.jpg)
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