Whangarei Falls Tuesday - January 21,2014

TUESDAY – JANUARY 21, 2014

BOTTOM LINE:

Explored Whangarei Falls

Visited Native Bird Recovery Center

BACK STORY:

HAPPY ANNIVERSRY TO MY PARENTS!  It would have been their 65^th anniversary today and something to have been celebrated.

Today we pretty much bolted out of the house trying to catch the next city bus that would take us up to Whangarei Falls.  As we headed to a bus stop, Bruce flagged down a taxi for clarification about where to catch a connecting bus.  He invited us to climb in and he would take us to the bus “station.”  He was officially off duty and couldn’t charge us.  He took us directly to the spot and told us to run to catch the bus that was ready to pull out.

I have to comment about the people of New Zealand.  With tourism playing a major role in their economy, in general the people seem to go out of their way to extend advice, directions or help. We have been grateful!

We caught the bus and headed up into the hills to our drop off site.  The driver gave details of where we were to catch the return bus and how to transfer to another bus for our afternoon appointment.

Just beyond the parking lot was the picturesque Whangarei Waterfall.  The area was very lush from the morning drizzle.  At that point we could have easily walked out to the road and caught the next bus.  We wanted the exercise and had been told by an information center woman that the trek along the river down from the falls was beautiful.  She was right but unfortunately the signs from the lower parking lot back to the main street where buses stop were not clearly marked.

 

Whangarei Falls

 

Creek below Whangarei Falls

We finally made it to our connection three hours later…in the rain!  Making the transfer got us up to the Native Bird Recovery Center a half an hour late.  Peter and Robyn Webb are founders. Our hostel host Peter set up an appointment with Robert. 

Robert Webb and Bruce

  

When we entered the center Robert was in the midst of a talk with other guests and welcomed us.  When his talk ended and the people left, we were given a personal tour of the facility. The Kiwi bird was our main interest.  The Kiwi is distinct in that it has no predators and evolved into a flightless bird.  There is very little left of it's wings. Unfortunately today stoats, rats and dogs have an easy time devouring the birds thereby putting them on the endangered species list.

 

Under formed Kiwi bird wing

The other distinction is the how large their eggs are in comparison to how small they are!  We were able to witness the transfer of a healed bird to the game warden who was going to release it back into the wild…very exciting.

Large Kiwi bird egg

Hunting Kiwi

  

The Kiwi bird is funny feathered friend.  It digs for worms and grubs deep in soil.  It's smell sensors are in the tip of its beak.  By piercing the soil the bird can smell it's food, grab a hold, pull it up and toss it into the back of it's throat to eat.

Kiwi Bird

We not only saw the kiwi but also a Tui bird.  A Tui is a black bird with blue side wings, white throat feathers and a ring of small white feathers around its neck that resembles a necklace.  The tui would be similar to a mocking bird in the US.  It mimics what it hears but instead of making bird calls it clearly and loudly repeats human voices…immediately after hearing a conversation.  It was freaky!

Tui Bird (taken from postcard)

The intention of the center is to heal and return birds into the wild as quickly as feasible.  Some birds like the flightless hen (can’t remember its name) would not be released.  This particular hen lost a leg from a trap intended for a rodent.

There were a couple of Morepork Owl babies that will be released once they are large enough and become aggressive in captivity (during puberty).

Morepork Owl

 

The two couples that we met when we first arrived to the center turned out to be traveling in two sailboats.  One couple was from Olympia, WA and the other was from San Diego, CA.  This was the second voyage for the San Diego couple that hope to make the trek to New Zealand yearly.  It took them seven months to make the crossing. Quite impressive!...but of NO interest to me!

We were both very happy to return to the hostel after making a stop at the grocery store. We figured that we had walked/hiked for 6 hours and were pretty tired.