Auldwood Birds

31/07/2024

Cupping the sun in your wings.

Kahu - swamp harrier - Circus approximans

29/07/2024

One of our more popular tours is the Silo Dawn Chorus Bird Watching package to Hinewai Forest Reserve, which we offer in conjunction with SiloStay LittleRiver.

A special moment in these tours is the visit to the studio of wildlife artist Tricia Hewlett, and, if the timing of our visit suits, we get to visit her partner Paul's aviary of Kākāriki Whero (red-crowned parakeet - Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae).

After a SiloNight for two (or one), rise early for an excursion to Hinewai Nature Reserve to experience the breathtaking views and sounds of native birds for the Dawn Chorus.
The 'SiloDawnChorus' package includes:
- A SiloNight for two at SiloStay.
- A 5 hour tour.
- Transport to and from SiloStay.
- Delicious continental breakfast at sunrise to hear the Dawn Chorus.
- A two-hour guided nature walk with internationally published wildlife photographer and writer, Steve Attwood of Auldwood Birds tour company.
- A late check out of 12.30pm for our SiloDawnChorus package.
Immerse yourself in New Zealand's nature for the best part of any day for NZ$550 for two, all year round.
Don't just look, book.
https://www.silostay.kiwi.nz/book-now/packages-2/
Auldwood Birds page here: https://www.facebook.com/Freerange.B1rding/

27/07/2024

Never get sick of tauhou(waxeyes)

23/07/2024

Birds New Zealand is a charitable society so we rely on donations and membership subscriptions to fund our important work including funding bird research to help inform evidence-based conservation and management.

📷 Kiwi-Nui North Island Brown Kiwi: Colin Miskelly
📷 Takahē: Michael Szabo
📷 Tawaki Fiordland Crested Penguin: Doug Gimesy

23/07/2024

Great to hear tui sound coming back to the Peninsula!

23/07/2024

23/07/2024

One of our more popular dawn chorus tours in association with SiloStay LittleRiver

20/07/2024

Gotta love tauhou

20/07/2024

Sometimes testosterone gets in the way of good decision making. Korimako boss bellbird.
This bellbird is the boss of our garden . . . until the tui shows up. He spends more time chasing the sparrows and waxeyes off the sugar water feeder than he does drinking from it himself. If he was not so focussed on stopping others from drinking from it, he would actually have more time to drink from it himself!

19/07/2024

The kereru are raiding the new shoots on the kowhai.

10/07/2024

A few birds from my wanders around Little River in recent days.

05/07/2024

I had fun watching this little tauhou winkle a tasty grub out of the scaly bark of a dead willow branch in the garden today.

03/07/2024

"I'm not fat, I'm just a little bit bent!"
Lake Ellesmere ngutuparore/wrybill, the only bird in the world with a bill that bends sideways.

30/06/2024

It's not even mid-winter yet but the karuhiruhi (pied shags) are already well into nesting on the island near the mouth of the Selwyn River into Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere.

It is a hive of activity there.

Clutches are laid in all months, but normally with peaks during February-April and August-October.

The huge amount of activity at Selwyn Mouth suggests these birds are having a winter burst of nest building right now!

30/06/2024

Up, up and away!

28/06/2024

The tauhou invaded the garden today, flicking insects out of the bursting raupo heads and in amongst our twisted willow.

17/06/2024

Portraits of a leucistic c**k sparrow.

13/06/2024

Kakīānau cygnets, junction of Okuti and Okana Rivers.

13/06/2024

Kahu in fading light this evening.

06/06/2024

It is the time of year when we see kahu (swamp harriers) gathering in numbers and doing aerial displays as they start to establish (or re-establish) their nuptial bonds. Younger birds looking for mates sometimes get a bit of a hiding from the established pairs re-bonding, while in other groups they all seem to be unattached and are spiralling around each other trying to sort out who is going to hook up with whom.
These courtship displays continue from now through to October. During displays pairs will perform spectacular rocking dives, then swoop back up in a large U-shaped loop while making high-pitched double-tone calls.
This afternoon near the old boatshed area of O Te Wairewa/Lake Forsyth today there was a lot of harrier around engaging in these displays.
Unfortunately, my post-surgery shoulder will still not let me lift my camera up to get aerial shots, so I had to content myself with this beautiful youngster (same bird in all photos), who seemed to have needed a break, or perhaps had been driven away by more mature birds, and was sitting obligingly first in the scrub and then flying on to a nearby post.
An amazingly confiding bird (very unusual for harriers) it allowed quite a close approach using my car as a hide.

Kaku are the largest of the worlds harrier species.

02/06/2024

A courting pair.
Matuku moana/white-faced heron (Egretta novaehollandiae) get cosy with each other. Note the breeding plumes on the backs of each bird fully displayed in the first photo.
Photographed at O Te Wairewa/Lake Forsyth.

28/05/2024

The lovely sun was certainly bringing out the birds in the garden today with three tui, kereru, piwakawaka, korimako, riroriro, tauhou, and introduced species making the garden alive with sound.
The low late autumn light really brought out the colours in the tui especially!

16/05/2024

Not one, not two but THREE tui in the garden today. Unfortunately I was not able to get them all in one photo.
Kenny the kereru showed up as well just to prove tui are not the only fluorescent birds in the garden!

15/05/2024

Great work

04/05/2024

May the fourth be with all bird photographers!

03/05/2024

I think this kōtuku was trying to say its loves me - I mean, why else would it make that love heart shape!

02/05/2024

Evening light at Te Roto O Wairewa

28/03/2024

A lovely day out with Judy and Gail Schaumann today. Windy, cold and spotting with rain but we managed to score some lovely birds including a number of immature bar-tailed godwit (Limosa lapponica) that have decided not to return to the Arctic circle for the breeding season. They will stay here for a season and go home next autumn.

23/06/2023

Auldwood Birds was privileged to be treated to a stay at a South Island New Zealand private mountain cabin residence. The garden was full of birds! One of our favourite encounters was when a lovely female ngirungiru (South Island tomtit - Petroica macrocephala) came to the garden right in front of the main entrance where some recent gardening work had dug up the soil.
The sharp-eyed little bird perched on high viewing spots, including a verandah post, before dropping down to pick up insects and grubs disturbed by our hosts' gardening efforts.
Ngirungiru are rarely, if ever, seen in developed areas, but this lovely garden in the hills, full of native plantings, was the perfect place for this bold little bird.