Thirty Pounds and a Passport * Part IX

A Boat Named Robert

Kea

October 21 Qantas Airways #35 Melbourne to Christchurch, New Zealand

We are off to see Christchurch by trolley car. At 300,000 people this is the second largest city in New Zealand and the most English city outside England. Christchurch was a planned community established in 1850 by English upper class settlers who wanted to build a better version of home and everything here has an English flavor. The city is named for one of the colleges of Oxford University. The surrounding countryside is the Canterbury Plains and the river through town is the Avon. Early Church of England settlers even imported birds from home to have the sights and sounds of England. European Blackbirds are singing as we stroll through the botanical garden. Spring is in full bloom here and there are flowers everywhere.

The center of town is the Anglican Cathedral. Avenues and parks radiate out from there. In Victoria Park we wave to the statue of Queen Victoria erected on the occasion of her diamond jubilee of sixty years of reign in 1897. Another park has seagulls sitting on the statue of Captain Cook, the South Seas explorer. Yes, that gull with the bright red bill and cherry red feet is a life bird. One can find life birds even in the middle of downtown.

The Avon flows through the center of town and we watch people punting on the river. No, punting has nothing to do with football. A punt is a small boat the size of a rowboat but pointed at both ends. There is no motor. A young man stands at the back with a long pole and pushes the boat along the shallow river while the passengers enjoy views of the city. It is easy going downstream but we watch the boatman pushing a lot harder coming back against the current. Punting looks like fun but the art market distracts us.

Downtown Christchurch has an old university built in the 1800s. It is a wonderful series of Gothic stone buildings built around several courtyards modeled after an English college. By the 1970s the student body had grown to the point that the college was bursting at the seams. Being in the middle of downtown there was no room to expand, so the university moved out to a new location and vacated all of these magnificent buildings in the town’s center.

By a stroke of genius, the city fathers turned the whole complex into an art center. There are concerts in the courtyards. Classrooms become studios for pottery, sculpture, weaving, painting, bone carving, woodworking and every visual art form imaginable. These studios have art for sale directly from the artist. Other classrooms are now galleries where even more artists exhibit and sell. Shirley particularly enjoys the weaving studios with beautiful handmade woolens. Today is Sunday and the place to be in Christchurch is at the art market. The courtyards and entryways of the old university are full of artists and craftspeople. Sales of ethic food add to the festival atmosphere. The art market brings people downtown and keeps the city center alive.

Ms. Shirley wanders into department stores to see what the locals are buying. Outside it is spring and tulips and rhododendrons are blooming. Inside, the department stores are all decorated for Christmas. Store displays with figurines in Victorian Christmas scenes, complete with carolers in the snow, seem strangely out of place. But we remember that Christchurch is a bit of transplanted England here in the middle of the southern hemisphere where Christmas happens to come only four days after the beginning of summer.

All the countryside is springtime green as we roll west from Christchurch towards Arthurs Pass. This is our first time to travel by train. We enjoy the big windows and the great view while sitting up high. Soon we’re headed uphill beside a braided river rushing down from glaciers to the sea. Glacier-melt rivers look different than other streams. They are a milky turquoise color and are never clear. The murkiness comes from glacial flour. The force of glaciers moving down mountains over the centuries grinds rocks into fine flour-like powder. When the front of the glacier melts, the glacial flour is transported down the river and keeps the river murky for miles. The turquoise comes from the reflection of the blue sky in the opaque water. Many high country lakes have this same turquoise color due to the glaciers.

The train enters the Southern Alps and tall snow-covered peaks surround us. In mid-spring the mountains have an abundance of snow and rivers are running bank-full with snowmelt. The lower mountain slopes have thousands of Merino sheep. These walking sweaters are everywhere. New Zealand has fewer than 4 million people but 45 million sheep. With every twist and turn of the railroad track there is new mountain scenery to enjoy. The ranger loves mountains and this is paradise.

At the pass we leave the train for a hardy alpine lunch, then board a tour bus to see other New Zealand treats. Half of our fellow passengers are Japanese; the rest are Chinese from Singapore. Shirley and I are the token Americans. Our tour guide speaks better Japanese than English but we make out fine. We understand Japanese only slightly less than some of the New Zealander’s English.

Halfway down the mountain is a stop at a rushing mountain river for a jet boat ride. This New Zealand invention has no outboard motor because of the rocks in the river. Instead turbines, internal to the boat, bring in river water and thrust it out the back under high pressure which drives the boat forward VERY FAST. The boat goes so fast that it sits on top of the water instead of gliding through it and this allows the boat to maneuver in extremely shallow water. Our boat operator is a real cowboy out to show the tourists what he and his boat can do. We zip this way and that at high speed, certain that we are going to run aground on gravel bars or crash into the sides of the gorge. He throws the boat into tight 360-degree turns that make everyone feel that they will be thrown out of the boat. The Japanese are screaming like mad. We’re all glad to be wearing life jackets. It’s great fun but we all feel a little shaky getting off. Now it’s time for some quieter entertainment.

In the valley we visit a sheep station with 7,000 sheep on one property. Here they grow wool not for sweaters but for wool carpets. The sweater sheep are in the higher elevations. The station’s sheep dog puts on an amazing demonstration as she herds fifty sheep around the pasture without any commands from the owner. The dog thinks that this is great fun; it’s not work for her.

Then we watch sheep being sheared. The sheep is basically laid upside down and given an all-over haircut with large electric barber shears. A good shearer can do over 300 sheep a day. Station owners generally do not shear their own sheep. They contract out to professionals. This one station with 7,000 sheep brings in a whole team of experienced shearers to do the flock each year. As we watch the sheep get a woolcut, the whole shearing shed smells wonderfully of lanolin and everyone is suddenly in the mood to buy wool sweaters. New Zealand sweaters are beautiful and surprisingly inexpensive. Ms. Shirley finds two that should fit in her duffle bag nicely. She says that if there isn’t enough room, she’ll just take out some khaki.

After a visit to the shearing shed and the sweater shop, it is time for afternoon tea and biscuits (cookies) at the station owner’s house. As we enjoy the afternoon sun, the owner’s five-year-old son and a neighbor boy bring out two new lambs that are being bottle-fed. The lambs and the boys play tag in the yard and each of the bus passengers wants her picture taken while holding the lambs. The lambs don’t think much of this idea and they squirm a lot and the tourists giggle. There are going to be a lot of strange pictures going back to Japan. A large yellow house cat gets an equal amount of attention, not by squirming or acting cute but by doing absolutely nothing. It is stretched out on top of a picnic table ignoring everyone and the cameras are going wild. Such is life when you have adoring fans.

After a fun day in the mountains, it is back to town and a last night at our Christchurch bed & breakfast. We enjoy a three-room suite on the second floor of an 1856 house. Ms. Shirley thinks it’s great to be reading on the window seat and smelling the wisteria blooming just outside.

October 24 Air New Zealand #5005 Christchurch to Invercargill, New Zealand
October 24 Stewart Island Flights Invercargill to Stewart Island, New Zealand

Invercargill is at the southern tip of the South Island of New Zealand. We no sooner land than we are on another airplane, a nine-passenger plane this time. We have a twenty-minute flight to Stewart Island, the smallest by far of the three main islands of New Zealand. Stewart Island has only 300 residents in one fishing village and the rest of the 650 square-mile island is protected wilderness. Here on Stewart we will search for birds, such as the kiwi, that are much more difficult to find on the larger islands where more people live.

One of our goals in New Zealand is to see a real kiwi bird. We know it only from the picture on a can of Kiwi Shoe Polish. The kiwi is a flightless bird that is the national symbol of New Zealand. The people here are proud to be called Kiwis just as the people in the United States are known as Americans. Kiwis are strictly nocturnal and live in dense forests making them difficult to find. But here we are trying to do just that, find a kiwi.

We leave our Stewart Island hotel an hour before sunset, fourteen of us in a small fishing boat. Guess who is out on the bow? There is no Titanic pose this time but like a dog with his nose to the wind, the ranger is ready for whatever he can find. Soon bottlenose dolphins are swimming alongside. They swim circles around us just to show us how fast they are and how slow our boat is in comparison. At times they leap clear out of the water in great displays as if trying out for an audition at Sea World.

At the beginning of dusk there are a number of small animals swimming near the boat. At first they look like small dogs but there are no dogs in the ocean. They turn out to be penguins, Little Blue Penguins. These are the smallest of the penguins, about a foot long. This is the same species we saw one night in Australia but now we are out on the ocean with them. They are gathering in groups getting ready to go ashore to underground burrows once it is fully dark.

Wait, there is a larger penguin in the water. It’s a rare Yellow-eyed Penguin. There are only 1500 breeding pairs in the world and they all nest in New Zealand. This is a great treat for us.

It is dark when we arrive at the remote dock on the far side of the bay. The tide is out, so the dock is ten feet above the boat. Can everyone climb up a ladder, straight up in the dark? We do, some more gingerly than others. Then we quietly slip into the dark forest on a trail no wider than we are. In a half mile we climb over a hill and across a finger of land jutting out from Stewart Island. We landed on the peninsula on the bay side and we need to cross over to the ocean side by the light of dim flashlights.

Dodging tree roots and mud puddles in the forest, we finally reach a wide beach on the other side of the peninsula. Now all flashlights go off. No one is allowed to use a light except the guide so we don’t scare the birds. Luckily there is bright starlight in a clear sky. We have the Southern Cross to give us direction in the same way that northerners use the North Star.

Down the beach we dodge driftwood in the soft sand. We’re still looking for kiwis. I have always wanted to see a kiwi and this might be my chance. Kiwis normally feed in the forest not on the sand but here the forest comes down to the edge of the beach and sometimes kiwis venture out to find insects that are attracted by the beach-wrecked seaweed. We walk several hundred yards and my hopes are high.

Suddenly there it is! There in the guide’s light is a female Brown Kiwi. We quietly walk up to 25 feet away and she ignores us while feeding. She has the size and appearance of a fuzzy soccer ball with two big feet at the bottom and a small head with a seven-inch bill. To see a kiwi in the wild is one of my lifelong dreams and here she is.

Kiwis have poor eyesight but a well-developed sense of smell. They can smell an earthworm several inches below the surface of the ground. Unlike most birds, they have nostrils at the end of their bill and they probe for food by smelling it. Chickens and most other birds feed by sight not smell. This kiwi looks like she has fur. Kiwi feathers are primitive and not like most birds’.

We watch the kiwi for twenty minutes enjoying the sight of this almost mythical bird and then walk on further down the beach in the starlight to let her feed in peace. Later when we return, she is still there at the edge of the beach and we stop to enjoy another look.

Then it’s back on the trail by dim flashlight and back over the tree roots and mud puddles until we reach the dock again. Somehow going down that ten-foot ladder to the boat in the dark seems more of a challenge than going up the same ladder earlier but we all make it. An hour-long boat ride back across the bay is a nice romantic ride in the starlight. It is cold by now so we snuggle up close.

This is the first of seven boat trips we will make in the next thirteen days. New Zealand is a group of islands in the Southern Ocean and many of the birds we hope to see are seabirds.

October 28 Stewart Island Flights Stewart Island to Invercargill, New Zealand
October 29 Road travel by bus from Invercargill to Milford Sound, New Zealand

Raucous cries of “keeaaa” reveal the presence of the Kea, the large mountain parrot of New Zealand’s South Island. Although they number only 5,000 in all of New Zealand, there seem to be several at every campground, ski lodge and roadside pullout in the mountains. They are attracted to humans and free food. The tourists love these highly social and inquisitive birds that seem to show up wherever tourists do. The mischievous behavior that the tourists find so endearing is a royal pain to the local citizens who live with Keas year round. At best the locals tolerate them as comical clowns while the sheep farmers and ski lodge operators hate them as destructive pests. No one is indifferent towards the Kea.

One can never turn his back on Keas. They will steal anything that isn’t nailed down. They will attempt to eat ANYTHING. In the campground Keas rip holes in tents, pick camping gear apart, destroy hiking boots, and fly off with anything small enough to carry. In parking lots and roadside pullouts Keas attack any part of a car made of rubber or plastic. They tear rubber windshield wipers into pieces. They rip at the rubber molding that holds the windshield in place and destroy it. They bite car mirrors and radio antennas. They even scratch the car bumpers. Heaven help any car with a vinyl top!

At ski resorts the inquisitive Keas peck at all the buildings and machinery. They even destroy safety mechanisms on the ski lifts. On construction sites these parrots steal nails, screws, or virtually anything that can be carried away in a beak. Keas get inside buildings any way possible including chimneys. Once inside, anything chewable is fair game.

Living in a harsh mountain environment where winter food is scarce, Keas learned to scavenge from carcasses for high-energy animal fat. Sheep farmers believe that the parrots even kill live sheep for food. There was a bounty paid for killing Keas up until 1986. Perhaps 150,000 have been killed since the coming of the Europeans to New Zealand. Now much diminished in number this parrot is protected by law and farmers and building owners have to take preventative measures to protect their property without killing Keas.

All of this seemingly destructive behavior is actually an ecological adaptation for survival. These parrots live in harsh mountain areas bleak with snow in the winter and uncertain food supplies at any time of year. To survive, the Keas evolved perhaps the highest level of intelligence of any birds. They are inquisitive about everything in their environment. They will pick at and chew anything and everything. In this way they are open to any food source that may be available. Like ravens and coyotes, they are adaptable to any changes in their environment that may offer a new food source.

The coming of humans into the mountains opened up new opportunities for food and the Keas were quick to check everything out. This ability to adapt to change and make the most of new opportunities is unusual in most bird species.

Now with the coming of humans and high-energy food scraps, many Keas no longer spend all day hunting low-energy natural foods. So they have time on their hands (feet.) Keas gather in pairs or in groups up to fifty in places wherever people congregate. Juvenile males often make up the majority of the larger loitering groups. Using their natural curiosity these teenagers investigate everything and cause destruction in the process. Although many parrots are watching, it is often only a few that are actually being mischievous. That seems to mimic the behavior of human juveniles.

Ms. Shirley and the ranger love to watch the antics of the Kea but are careful not to leave anything where the parrots can reach it. And that certainly includes cameras and binoculars.

October 30 Road travel by bus from Milford Sound to Kaikoura, New Zealand

This boat should be named Robert because it sure can bob. I should have known that our luck would change. We’ve had four boat trips on millpond-flat oceans but now we see the other side of the sea. The wind is blowing 25 mph out of the south. That’s the direction of Antarctica. All the waves have a white head on them—a big white head. And the boat is only forty feet long! There are fourteen in our birding group plus three tourists that came along in the hopes of seeing dolphins. One look at the ocean and I can see that we are in for an “exciting” trip.

Normally to find the real ocean birds one must travel several hours out from land to the edge of the continental shelf where the truly deep water begins. Deep cold water has more food in it and thus more seabirds. Here at Kaikoura on the east side of South Island, the continental shelf is only three miles offshore where a deep ocean canyon comes close to land. The cold nutrient-rich water of the deep ocean travels up the canyon and runs into the sharp edge of the continental shelf. Here the cold water upwells and brings the nutrients (plankton and other small critters) to the surface. The nutrients attract fish, squid and other medium-sized sea-dwellers and that in turn attracts the seabirds.

The mighty forty-foot “Robert” motors out three miles in what can be described as a moderate roller coaster ride. That’s not too bad. But when we reach the upwelling and the seabirds, the captain turns off the engine. With no forward motion, “Robert” becomes “Bob”. We bounce this way; we bounce that way. The back end reaches for the sky while the front end reaches for the sea floor—and then it reverses. The boat goes left; I go right. We’re like a little cork in a big washing machine. I’m on the upper deck and my view is of the horizon swinging in wild arcs.

How do you tame this bucking bronco? The trick is to stand at right angles to the boat with one’s legs spread wide and the knees bent. The knees flex in opposite directions to the boat’s sway while the upper body stays vertical. At least that’s the theory and sometimes it works. Other times it’s just grab the railing with one hand and try to steady the binoculars with the other.

Luckily we don’t have to use binoculars. The birds are right at the stern of the boat. People on the bottom deck can almost reach out and touch them. The boat’s mate is chumming the water with a combination of fish oil, fish livers, offal from the slaughterhouse and all sorts of smelly stuff that attract birds. These seabirds are used to following fishing boats and getting the rejects that the fishing trawlers throw overboard. So we smell just like a fishing boat and the birds come flying. Luckily the same wind that whips up the sea blows the smell of the chum away from us or at this point I would be chumming the sea myself. Lunch wasn’t that long ago.

So what has come to our watery banquet table? There are chocolate-brown Sooty Shearwaters about the size of a duck. There are sixty Cape Petrels that look like black-and-white spotted pigeons on the water right behind the boat grabbing at the chum and fussing and fighting and cackling all the time. There are huge brown Northern Giant-Petrels and Antarctic Giant-Petrels swimming side by side looking identical except that one has a rosy tip to the bill and the other has a greenish tint to the tip.

Several Shy Albatrosses come in looking like 737 aircraft compared to the small duck-sized and pigeon-sized birds. They are called Shy Albatross because they normally live far out at sea and are seldom seen close to land. Then in come eight Wandering Albatrosses of three different sub-species. If the Shy Albatross is a 737, then the Wandering is a 747. It has the longest wingspan of any bird. Its wingtips would stretch the width of the average size bedroom. At various times all of these birds come within two feet of the stern to grab part of the feast.

One of the tourists becomes seasick and adds to the chum in the water, so it is time to put the boat into motion and get the rocking and swaying down to two directions instead of all 360 degrees. Off we go directly into the face of the wind and waves.

This rocky ride provides new thrills. Every so often we ride up on an extra large wave, get to the top, and then suddenly there’s no wave under the front half of the boat. The bow crashes down with a loud BOOM! So for ten minutes it’s bounce, bounce, bounce, BOOM—bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, BOOM!

Finally we reach a quieter area in the lee side of ocean rocks and find a raft of a thousand or more Fairy Prions, small silver and black seabirds from the cold Antarctic waters. If you’re a bird watcher interested in seabirds, this trip is heaven. If you’re a seasick tourist, this is your worst nightmare.

Then all too quickly for some and not nearly quickly enough for others, we are back to shore and the surface beneath our feet no longer feels like an amusement park ride. Even the hardiest birdwatcher among us breathes a sigh of relief.

November 2 Ferry from Picton to Wellington, New Zealand

It takes a large oceangoing ferryboat to travel from the South Island to the North Island of New Zealand. It is only a three-hour trip but storms in Cook Strait can make for a rough ride. Luckily there are no storms today, only dark clouds and cold winds on the open ocean. Less devoted birders and saner passengers abandon the open decks and leave the bow of the ship alone to the ranger. Bundled in all the coats and sweaters he has, he faces the wind and revels in flying albatrosses at eye level and penguins in the waters below. It is great to be on a boat, the size of a small island, that doesn’t give in to the wind and waves. I have already seen four species of penguins and five species of albatross in this millennial year but there is still one albatross left to find. And here it is! A Buller’s Albatross comes cruising out of the fog that developed halfway across the strait. The ship’s foghorn is a great punctuation to a successful sea-birding trip.

Our last two days in New Zealand take us to the north part of North Island. Here the weather and our luck change for the worse. We’ve seen rain before but it was never heavy enough to stop us from birding. We’ve also seen wind before but it never occurred at a time that stopped us from doing what we wanted to. But now, a storm front has blown in and threatens to bring everything to a halt.

On Saturday we reach a wildlife refuge on the shore north of Aukland. High winds and spitting rain compel us to have our picnic lunch inside the visitor center. With every bite of our sandwich we glance out the window hoping for a weather change. It is not to be. Those brave enough will have to face the daunting weather.

Rainsuits fully zipped up, hats firmly tied on heads, binoculars hidden under our raincoats in an attempt to keep them dry, about half of our group trudges out to the beach. The other half finds a sudden urge to study all the exhibits inside in the visitor center. Shirley tells me that she is staying behind purely for educational purposes and the rainstorm has nothing to do with it. “I knew I could always trust an accountant to tell me the truth.”

In distance the walk isn’t long but timewise it’s lengthy. It is impossible to face into the wind. Some of us walk looking down at our feet letting our hat shield our face from the tempest. Others try walking backward but tripping over a piece of driftwood soon proves the folly in that. We’re still dry mostly but our hands are now shivering from the cold rain. We have gloves in our pockets but there is no use pulling them out; they are not waterproof.

A half-mile down the beach is a fishing shack and that’s our destination. It’s the only thing around that can shield us from the strong wind and rain. Deep sand make our little beach walk feel like a death march but finally we’re there. The lee side of the shack provides a sheltered area about eight feet by four feet. All who want to use binoculars without having them rendered useless by the wind-driven rain have to stand in this one spot. That’s great providing there are any birds to be seen from this location. While trudging out here, we weren’t able to look up and see what’s on the shoreline.

Luckily, there are birds on the beach in front of us. Red Knots and Ruddy Turnstones are medium-sized sandpipers picking through seaweed at the high tide mark. I’m glad to see that we didn’t walk out here for nothing even if both of these species are ones that I have seen many times in the United States. Other than a more distant Bar-tailed Godwit, there doesn’t seem to be anything else about in this storm. But we shan’t leave just yet; we’ve worked too hard to get out here. Besides we are not eager to leave our sheltered spot and get back out into the wind.

A small flock of whitish plovers flies in and lands with tail feathers askew in the wind. This is something new, New Zealand Dotterels, a life bird. We do have something to show for our walk. In my life I have walked a thousand walks that didn’t produce a life bird. Luckily this one in the storm does. As I try to do with all life birds, I am going to watch these for a while and savor the moment.

There are a dozen or more dotterels picking at the seaweed looking for insects and other invertebrates. They bustle around the driftwood moving into and out of sight from my vantage point. They are hungry and they are ignoring the storm, except they always keep their heads towards the wind so their feathers don’t blow backwards. There is a lot of movement and with all the driftwood I can’t keep track of all of them all the time.

But there, next to a log, is a slightly smaller bird. It’s whitish and to my naked eye looks about the same as the dotterels. But I have to check everything out. I may never be here again so I want to seize every opportunity while I can.

I wipe off my binoculars on a corner of dry cloth and try to see what’s next to the log without getting a face full of rain. It’s not a dotterel. It doesn’t have a short plover bill. It seems to have a longer, thinner bill like a sandpiper but, doggone the rain, I can’t see well with the raindrops that have already blown onto my binocs. I wipe them again on a cloth that doesn’t have many dry corners left.

“Sam, can I stand where you are, please? I want to get a better look at something.” Yes, that is a longer, thinner bill like a sandpiper—but wait a minute; the bill is bent!

“This bird has a bent beak!!!” I shout.

Suddenly everyone wants to be where I am. The Wrybill is the only bird in the world with a bent beak. No, the bill is not curved upwards or down. A number of the world’s birds have that. The Wrybill’s beak is bent to the side. It looks exactly like the bird flew head on into a wall and bent his bill. The tip of the bill makes a 45-degree turn to the right. All Wrybill beaks turn to the right. No one has ever found one straight or turned to the left. This unusual bill is an adaptation for feeding among the seaweed and driftwood. Although fairly common in its limited range, the Wrybill is only found in New Zealand. “Thank goodness we made that horrible walk out here.”

After a long walk back in the storm the ranger looks haggard and happy. Ms. Shirley is warm and perky after thoroughly enjoying the DRY museum exhibits.

Sunday is our last day in New Zealand. We are scheduled to travel to one of the small offshore islands that has been turned into a bird refuge. New Zealand has lost many of its native birds due to predation from introduced animals. Before the coming of man, New Zealand had only two species of mammals, both bats. With the coming of the Europeans, rats, cats, dogs, possums and other mammals were introduced, either deliberately or inadvertently. Many of these new mammals found the native birds easy prey because the birds had evolved in a predator-free environment. Even small mice led to the extinction of some bird species.

Now some native New Zealand birds exist only on certain small offshore islands that are mammal free. Constant vigilance is required by the wildlife service to be on the lookout for any mice or rats that may wash ashore on a piece of flotsam. Today we are headed to one of those islands where there are four species that we have not yet seen on our trip.

But it is not to be. Sam, our guide, hangs up the phone after calling the boat company. Yesterday’s storm has intensified and the boats cannot run. In fact, a school group that went out yesterday morning was not able to return when the wind shifted and the waves rose. Sam says, “If you think we are disappointed at not being able to take the boat out, think how disappointed those teachers are who now have to spend two or three days out there with their students and no one was prepared for a stay.”

Well, there is that but nonetheless we’re disappointed. There are four birds out there that we may never see. Since this is our last day, there is no opportunity to reschedule. Sam does have an alternative. If we want, we can drive a hundred miles inland to a large lake. On a mammal-free island in the middle of that lake the wildlife service has introduced Stitchbirds, one of the species that is also on the offshore island and not found anywhere on the main islands of New Zealand. Do we want to go there even though there is still a storm and the water will be choppy on the lake? Five people in the group want to brave the storm. Nine others suddenly feel the need to spend the day packing at the hotel since we are flying out to the States at midnight.

The boat ride to the lake’s island is indeed choppy. The captain has never seen people who want to go out in weather like this but if they want to buy a ticket, he’ll drive the boat. The native caretaker on the island is surprised to see us. Who would come out on a day like this? The rain is coming down hard and the trails are muddy and slippery. But this is our last day in New Zealand and for me the last birding day in a 7½-month trip. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

The birding gods are kind. We do find a pair of Stitchbirds in less than an hour in spite of the storm. There are long and satisfying looks at a bird that almost became extinct a hundred years ago.

Stitchbirds were fairly common on North Island until 1870. Then they declined rapidly due to predation and from 1885 to 1980 survived on only one small offshore island. There were none left on the mainland. Since then the wildlife service has moved groups of Stitchbirds onto several islands to lessen the chance that an accidental introduction of cats or rats may wipe out the entire population.

So our last day ends with a storm to remember, a missed opportunity to see a special island, and a new life bird that I will never forget. This day has been like our entire journey around the world, there have been the good, there have been the bad, but above all there are the memories.

We dry out on the ride back to the hotel and all too soon our time in Kiwi Country is over. It is time pack our bags and get on an airplane again. Our flight leaves at almost midnight. It will be great to get back to America but still we wish we could stay here longer. In our mind New Zealand is…

…a land of butter, cheese and milk. The whole north end of New Zealand looks like one big dairy farm.
…beautiful snow-covered mountains running almost the length of the South Island with deep fjords indenting the southwest coast.
…the ever-present ocean in its many moods.
…a country with good roads, good food and reasonably priced accommodations.
…a clean, green picturesque country with friendly people who always make us feel welcome.
…a place we must return to again.

It is easy to count the new birds in New Zealand:
North Island 11
South Island 42
Stewart Island 14
Total 67

Heading back to America the total for the year stands at 2216.