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Published: September 22nd 2012
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It doesn’t look like I’ll be going anywhere overseas this year, so instead I took a trip up to Auckland, the big smoke, to find some birds. This year I’ve been trying to pick off some of those few New Zealand birds which I haven’t seen yet and to this end I have already managed to add to my total the king shag up by Picton in February, blue duck at Arthur’s Pass in May, and Australasian brown bittern in Christchurch in July. I rarely get up to the North Island (or at least not much above Wellington) and hence there are a number of birds found in the top of the country which I haven’t seen. This trip was aimed at finally seeing some of those species. The first two days were a bit of a bust bird-wise, so I’ll skim over those briefly, but it picks up on the third day.
I usually travel alone of course, but fellow bird-nerd Andy came along on this one to lend his expertise in, um.....well, he came along anyway. First stop in Auckland was Butterfly Creek about ten minutes walk from the airport. This is a butterfly house with some other
insects, tarantulas, fish and reptiles as well, including saltwater crocodiles and American alligators. After checking out the inside exhibits we figured we may as well have a look around the outside part, which is called Buttermilk Farm and has things like goats and rabbits. Loafing around amongst the farm animals were several spotted doves and common mynahs. I’ve seen loads of spotted doves over in Asia but as an introduced species in New Zealand they are restricted to the top part of the North Island and hence were one of the species I was looking for to add to my NZ list. The mynahs were just for my year list. We had been going to go to the museum after checking into our hotel but the receptionist at Butterfly Creek told us it would be open at 8.30am next morning so we decided we would have plenty of time to visit it then, before our noon o’clock whale boat. A bad decision as it turned out.
The Auckland Museum is in a gardened area called the Auckland Domain which also has a tropical house and possibly some interesting birds, so the next morning we set off really early. On
the map it looked pretty simple to get there from our hotel on Queen Street, and it actually is but for some reason – let’s blame it on Andy – we took the very round-about route so it took a little longer than it should have. But we got there in the end....and discovered that the museum didn’t open until ten. The tropical house didn’t open until nine. We had a bit of a wait, so we lingered like langurs in the gardens until then. A nice surprise in the tropical house once we got in there were two
Amorphophallus titanum plants. I had seen a bud of one in Sumatra in 2009 but fate had conspired to not enable me to see the flower actually bloom. The interesting thing with
Amorphophallus – apart for the fact that the flower is the size of a gorilla – is that they only have one leaf, and that dies before the bud comes through, so you either have a leaf or a flower but not both. I had imagined the leaf to be rather like a banana leaf, but in fact it looks like a little tree. A very cool plant indeed.
Once ten o’clock arrived we hit the museum but of course only had about an hour to spare due to needing to be at the wharf for the whale boat. We were very impressed with the museum. I think it ties with the Otago Museum for being the best museum in the country. Unfortunately we had to rush through most of it, and the main part we were wanting to see (the “Weird and Wonderful” bit, with its live animal displays) was closed for renovation until November. There were some tanks for animals scattered around the exhibits (geckoes, native fish and sea anemones for example) and they were very nicely done so it was a shame we didn’t get to see the closed section.
Auckland’s Gulf Harbour is a prime location for seeing Bryde’s whales (that’s pronounced “broo-dahs whales” because it’s a Norwegian name – it was named after Norwegian whaler Johan Bryde – and everybody knows that Norwegians have trouble pronouncing words). The whale boat apparently sees whales on 75% of their trips, and common dolphins on 90% of their trips. They also see killer whales and bottlenose dolphins irregularly, as well as random other species. I’ve seen
Amorphophallus titanum
the mottly tree-like plant in the middle is the multi-branching leaf! common dolphins once before, in Wellington Harbour, but none of the others. There are also lots of seabirds in the area, including species that aren’t found in the south where we come from. Our hopes were high. The tour started with a talk about how killer whales had been seen recently and how a pod of bottlenose dolphins had followed the boat into the harbour. Nothing like setting yourself up for a fall. The boat trip was five hours long in total. Nobody had told the whales we were there to see them. Or perhaps someone had and that’s why they had all left. After about an hour and a half of absolutely nothing except a few seabirds moving too fast to get a proper fix on from a speeding boat (I *think* there may have been diving petrels, fluttering shearwaters and Buller’s shearwaters amongst them) we spotted a big raft of shearwaters gathering on the surface to feed. Did the boat stop for a look? Bet your life it didn’t!!! Any other cetacean boat I’ve been on at least pauses for seabird flocks (especially if it’s been an hour and a half without any sign of marine life!!) but
not this one. A passing fur seal warranted a couple of minutes and no more. At about the two hour mark a couple of common dolphins appeared off the side. Andy got a fleeting glimpse, most others including myself saw nothing, and unbelievably the skipper announced that they usually see pods of thirty or forty so we would go and look for those!!! Not even a five minute wait in case those two dolphins reappeared. Andy asked one of the crew members who was supposed to be the “help person” if the skipper could stop for a bit should another raft of shearwaters be sighted, and the answer was that he would have to go and ask the skipper himself. As it happened another flock of shearwaters was seen later, and still the boat didn’t stop. The trip finally ended after five hours of total failure. We of all people know how random animal-watching is, and sometimes not seeing the animals goes with the territory, but the way the trip played out was pretty poor.
If no whales or dolphins are seen the customers get given a free return voucher, valid for all eternity should you live that long.
Not much good for tourists who aren’t in a position to return, but handy for New Zealanders. But in another case of poor service, the voucher is given for the number of people in the party but only in the name of the person who booked the trip, which meant that Andy would have to go back to Auckland with me to get the free trip. He asked if he could get a separate one – all it would have taken was him showing his ID so they could put his name on an individual ticket – and he was flat out refused. All in all the only highlight of the trip was seeing the island of Tiritiri Matangi which we would be visiting in a few days time.
I guess that all sounded a bit negative, but reast assured the rest of the trip worked out much better!
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