New Years, Coromandel Style!

Well yes indeedio I'm finally in NZ and should be down here for a couple years at the very least. The plan is to score a teaching job in the bustling Waikato region while working on a few side-projects such as a new bird-related book, and of course exploring the North Island and beyond with Lisa! Below is the first chapter of my new life Down Unda!

After unpacking my bags and getting set up at our place in Cambridge (Will post something on my new digs at some point), Lisa whisked me away to the summer town of Whitianga up on the Coromandel Peninsula. Thanks to a remote vibe and plethora of great sandy beaches, it's becoming more and more popular for those wanting to escape the busy city life or monotonous farm chores. So in that sense, it's becoming less remote each year but that hasn't encouraged anyone to make the roads wider. I pity the poor cyclists that attempt those windy hills during the busy holiday season. Anyhoo, despite the crowds, there is still plenty of beautiful for everyone. Here's a short from the deck of our "Bach" up on the hill north of Whitanga--looking down to Mercury Bay.

Back in the winter of 2008, my friend Natalie and I traveled up through the North Island and all the way out to Opito Bay, north of Whitianga. It's a beautiful spot that retains the chilled-out attitude of real New Zealand. I was stoked that we were visiting in summer as the water would be primo for swimming and potentially gathering the odd shellfish. This photo captures a bit of the beach (on a hazy morning) and some lovely pohutakawas that are starting to bud. These "New Zealand Christmas Trees" will soon explode with marvelous red flowers, and really make North Island beaches some of the most eye-pleasing in the world I reckon.

Bit of a slanted shot here--what's photoshop?--showing some blokes out gathering pipis. This is a type of shellfish that are relatively easy to dig up in the sand on a lowtide. We gathered a bunch and fried them up for an appetizer. Mmm mmmm! In the background are some of the Mercury Islands, home to most of the world's Pycroft's Petrels I think.

Even better was Lisa's mate Francis who put on his scuba kit and swam out and nabbed us a bag of scallops! Ironically he's allergic to all shellfish but thankfully he's more than happy to bring home the proverbial sea-bacon!

#Fresh

As this was New Years Eve, a bunch of friends and family joined us up at the Bach. Here young Max is clambering for some tasty scallops, complete with their bright orange roe (stomachs I think?) that is richer, tastier, and creamier than the typical piece you get in most restaurants. Add a couple of cold brews to this image and you can imagine I'm enjoying myself.

After a fun New Years with all the usual consumption and firework near-misses, we spent New Years Day heading to New Chums Beach which just recently made a "Top 20 Beaches in the World" list compiled by who knows--somebody who found a great way to get paid. Anyway, now that it's on a list everyone and their ferret decided to join us to see what it was like. First you drive to Whangapoua Beach (pictured above; tractors make an idea boat-launching vehicle and are a common site on North Island beaches at this time of year), then you hike around a rocky point to get to the fabled New Chums. 

After a lovely stroll through Nikau Palms and other jungley vegetation, here's Lisa at one of the best beaches in the world! (Note the pohutakawas blooming in the background). It was indeed pretty darn nice although there was a lot of seaweed in the surf. We were lucky to arrive before the big crowds but presumably this would be a great place to visit during the non-peak season.

The endemic New Zealand Dotterel is a fairly common site on Coromandel Beaches. This one was along Whangapoua Beach.

On one afternoon a raft of Fluttering Shearwaters put on a good show for us, though it seems these fishermen had a better view. This is the most common tubenose encountered in summer off the North Island with many nesting on the islands and headlands around the Coromandel Peninsula. I suppose they're somewhat like the Black-vented Sheawaters off southern California.

Paddle-boarder getting in on the shearwater action

We returned to Opito Bay on a sunnier day. I hiked up one of the nearby headlands and took this photo of some of the Mercury Islands. A little slanty but you get the idea.

Looking back across Opito Bay itself.

And looking down on Francis snorkeling below. Today he not only snagged some more scallops but a few sea-urchins as well. Tastiness overload!

Well that about sums up the first couple days of my year! Stay tuned for road trip adventures with Lisa!

Another Layover in Taiwan

Well as many of you know by now I have moved down to New Zealand! It's been a while since I've posted so just to quickly update, I capped off an Education Degree (specifically teaching high-school-level students) with a final practicum placement in Oliver, BC just before Xmas. It all went well, had a great Xmas with family and friends, then hopped on a Boxing Night Red-Eye across the Pacific. Why NZ? Well there are a lot of good reasons to live in Aotearoa ("The Land of the Long White Cloud") but mainly because my wonderful girlfriend Lisa Jones lives there and is a teacher too! I'll be trying to get some teaching work myself while getting to know her friends and family and probably catching up with a few birds too. I lived in NZ back in 2008 so have a pretty good idea of what I'm getting into. As you'll see from following blog posts, there is still plenty of new and amazing places for me to explore to some great outdoor adventures ahead!

But before you find out what I've been getting up to in NZ, I should first put up a brief summary of my day-long layover in Taiwan. Two years ago on my flight back from Australia to Canada I had a similar layover and a friend-of-a-friend Dustin Wang took me around for some great birding. My China Airlines flight had me stopping over again so I emailed Dustin and he was happy to take me around again. Last time we concentrated on Taiwan endemics that were close enough to Taipei (Taiwan's capital in the north). These birds are mostly in the hills so this time around we decided to bird more around low-lying coastal areas where I had a good chance to pick up a number of lifers since I have never birded Asia apart from a trip to Borneo. Below are some photos and a brief summary of the day.

A distant shot of downtown Taipei as we whizzed north up the expressway. In the middle is Taiwan 101, the 6th-highest building in the world. At the time of its completion in 2004 it was the tallest structure in the world at 509m (101 floors), but in 2010 the Burj Khalifa was finished in Dubai with its whopping 828m and 163 floors.

Our first stop of the day was for this juvenile Siberian Crane--a first record for Taiwan! It's been around for a few weeks much to the delight of local birders and has been relatively confiding. With only three or four thousand of these cranes left in the wild, I felt lucky to catch up with this fellow.

Taiwanese birders admiring the crane. This picture also shows the rich and diverse cultivation common in Taiwanese countryside, even in winter. It's very cool to see that even in the downtown core, almost everyone has a garden and is finding ways to grow their own food.

Just before seeing the crane, this immature Brown Shrike became my first official lifer of the day.

Another lifer shrike for the day--this time a Long-tailed Shrike.

Another shot showing the crane and lowland Taiwanese landscape.

Unfortunately we did not have enough time to stop for too long as our two main birding locations were far apart and the weather was rather abrasive with wind and rain. Still, I was quite charmed by the dramatic coastline scenery of NE Taiwan. For an island-nation of around 24 million, it's amazing how much green space Taiwan enjoys. What also surprised me was that there are no gulls in Taiwan! There are fishing ports everywhere and it seems like a relatively temperate climate but there are only a few places where gulls might occasionally turn up. Even terns seem scarce. Will have to look into this.

One of my most wanted world birds--Eurasian Hoopoe!

Common Sandpipers were one of the few birds to be found along the rough outer coast; bobbing away like their North American cousins.

After missing out on several White Wagtails in BC this year, it was satisfying to see a few here in Taiwan while eating lunch. There were also several Eastern Yellow Wagtails around though I did not manage a photo of them.

And here is the most colourful winter-plumaged wagtail--the unfortunately named "Grey Wagtail."

Dusky Thrush is one of the more common Turdus thrushes in the lowlands of Taiwan in winter. This was a lifer and one I hope to see in Canada one day! Other Turdus lifers in the same area were Pale Thrush (one of the most common birds here it seems--sort of the American Robin of rural Taiwan), and Brown-headed Thrush though I didn't get photos.

Another nice Asian equivalent of a North American regular. This Green Sandpiper in basic plumage--not too dissimilar in looks or call from Solitary Sandpiper but in flight their bright white upper tail feathers are conspicuous.

Here's a crisp-looking adult Brown Shrike.

What I believe to be a Common Snipe (split from Wilson's a decade or so back). Let me know if you think otherwise.

Looks like a Little Ringed Plover to me.

More Taiwanese greenery, not far from one of the larger cities in the world. A Crested Serpent Eagle was whistling a way as I took this photo.

Had to include at least one temple shot. Each Chinese and Taiwanese temple has unique ornaments, with the "Dragon Wall" (gray engravings in front) acting as a sort of signature of the artist. At least that's what I gathered.

I think that building in the distance is the same temple pictured above. We had a nice long walk in this area birding local forests, plantations, and back alleys. It seems that "private property" is a lot more relaxed here as no one seemed to care that we were walking through their chicken coop or up their driveway. Taiwanese people have to be some of the friendliest in the world. Also on this river was my lifer Eastern Spot-billed Duck. Apparently the sedentary Taiwanese population is a future split candidate.

This is where a lot of the shorebirds and wagtails were hanging out. Even though this is all private land, birders were walking all over these fields. It so happens that I visited on a national bird count day. I understand that many birding groups here have adopted the American "Christmas Bird Count" tradition and have set up circles throughout the country. Not sure if we found anything too exciting for their count but I was happy with a few more lifers including Yellow-browed Warbler, Japanese Bush-Warbler, Black-faced Bunting, and Daurian Redstart.

At a nearby sportsfield we scanned for thrushes, wagtails, and pipits. I did not have any fieldguides with me but IDed this as a Richard's Pipit (Dustin knew the Taiwanese name but not the common name) as it has very little streaking on the chest and flanks. If you think this is another pipit please comment below.

Another lifer--Naumann's Thrush

Another Dusky Thrush shot for good measure

I thought this Eurasian Kestrel might be a lifer but it turns out I saw a few in Greece 11 years go. Still a beauty.

I think this was the only slam-dunk endemic bird I saw on this trip, though it's arguably the best-looking one anyway. Unfortunately this Taiwan Blue Magpie was scarfing down some bread when I snapped this pic.

The last photo I took that day was of this confiding Black Kite.

All in all I think we had around 55 species for the day. Not a bad way to spend a Christmas Bird Count, but I was certainly itching to get on that plane to Lisa and New Zealand. As expected, Dustin was a tremendous host and treated me to some great local cuisine including a luffa stew. Yes LUFFA is a food too! Check it out. After 2 layovers in Taiwan I'm up to 85 species for the country. Will have to return some day for a proper visit. 

Up next: NEW ZEALAND!

Sep 13/14 Tofino Pelagic Adventures

Dawn rises over Tofino Inlet. Saturday, Sep 13. (Photo: RC)

As usual it has taken me a while to get around to making this post. Life has kept me busy! The following is a brief account of two pelagic trips I organized off Tofino, BC on September 13th and 14th, 2014. In recent years, WildResearch has done a fabulous job running annual boat trips out of Ucluelet (the community south of Tofino) which has made the fabulous seabirds of the west coast much more accessible to British Columbian birders and outsiders alike. Unlike the coastal states south of here, to get to the outer coast, Canadians much take a ferry to Nanaimo, then drive over two mountain passes before reaching the small port towns of Ucluelet and Tofino. This makes any pelagic an expensive undertaking, which can be made extremely frustrating when you travel all that way only to have your boat trip cancelled due to foul weather. The big MV Francis Barkley that WR eliminates some of this risk as it is much more capable of handling swell that the little whale-watching boats that most people had to use previous to 2011. This year WR only ran a spring trip so several people called me up earlier this year asking if I could put together a small venture in the fall. A rough date was settled and in the end we decided to try for two days in a row to get as much out of the weekend as possible. Gilbert Bouchard was one of the main catalysts for the trip as he came all the way here from Quebec!

As always, when running small pelagic trips I go with the Tofino Whale Center. They're rates are reasonable but most of all they're skippers know what they're doing and have many years of experience watching and working with local marine wildlife. Prices can fluctuate but chartering one of their Boston Whalers is usually around $1200 for 6 hours, so with 12 people you can bring it down close to a reasonable $100 each.

We were a little nervous showing up bright and early on Saturday. The rumour was that there were no fish out there, and thus--no birds. Locals were remarking on the lack of whales... the lack of everything close to shore. From chatting with Paul Lehman and others it seems the NE Pacific has been inundated with unusually warm waters which has resulted in some conspicuous shifts of bird life (an indicator of other things as well). Species like Ashy Storm-Petrel and Guadalupe Murrelets--normally associated with Mexican waters--have been showing up off the coast of Oregon and Washington recently, while huge Sunfish and Yellow-fin Tuna have been seen off Alaska in areas they have never been recorded. So what would this mean for us? Hardly any birds? Maybe a rarity from the south? At the very least we realized we would probably have to head out to the continental shelf or further to find anything.

Sure enough there was very little inshore. In fact I don't think we saw a single Sooty Shearwater within the first 10 km offshore. Even Glaucous-winged Gull numbers were dramatically and noticeably low on the rocky islets near Cleland Island. Still, we did note a few nice birds as we made our way out, including a group of 65 BLACK OYSTERCATCHERS on one small islet and a WANDERING TATTLER not far from Tofino. A few WESTERN GULLS were also around. Below are a few photo-highlights from the two boat trips, with COMPLETE LIST TOTALS AT THE BOTTOM.

With a sigh of relief, we spotted our first Black-footed Albatross as we neared the continental shelf. A single fishing boat has attracted around 18 of these gentle giants from Hawaii and as always I savoured the call, "Albatrosssss!" (Photo credit: Dave Fraser)

Mid-September is a great time to see Buller's Shearwaters off BC. These NZ endemics are possible the most beautiful shearwater when seen in flight, but it's also pretty cool to observe them resting casually on the water. As the wind and swell was fairly light on both days, many of the shearwaters we encountered were "chilling" in mixed flocks, allowing for careful approach. (Photo: Dave Fraser)

Of the regular tubenose species encountered in BC waters, the Flesh-footed Shearwater is often one of the most coveted. I think in around 10 Tofino pelagic trips that I have participated in, this is only the second time I have had one. This bird was picked out among 10 other Pink-footed Shearwaters resting on the water. (Photo: Yousif Attia)

These guys might just be my favourite species encountered regularly in BC pelagic waters. Small and pudgy balls of feathers with a stomach packed with fish, these Cassin's Auklets are absolutely comical to watch as they attempt to "fly" away from the boat, skipping off each tiny wave; their bellies dragging as their tiny wings try desperately to lift their body weight. I assume many are molting which may explain their poor flying abilities at this time of year. We encountered many of them on both days out beyond the shelf in Clayoquot Canyon. (Photo: Dave Fraser)

For many on board, mammals stole the show on both days. I'm used to seeing plenty of Humpback spouts on boat-trips off the west coast but we really were spoiled by close encounters with these amazing beauties, including a group of around 8 that surrounded our boat and casually fed around us as other seabirds like the Pink-footed Shearwater pictured to the right, went after schools of fish pushed to the surface. This year has been a struggle for the whale-watching industry in Tofino apparently so we felt a bit spoiled with our show 60 km offshore. I guess it pays to be a crazy birdwatcher!

The highlight for our skipper John Fordde was undoubtedly this FIN WHALE, which we encountered on the Sunday. This was a lifer mammal for him, and one that obviously is not regular off this part of the island (at least not this close to shore). At one point the whale lay completely upside-down under our boat, explosing its long white belly for nearly a minute of eerie silence as we sat wondering what its next move would be! I've seen Fins off the east coast but that was 15 years ago so this was fantastic--and it's the second largest animal in the world! (Photo: Dave Fraser)

This photo captures just how calm the seas were on the weekend. Here, part of the group photograph a Tufted Puffin as it paddles casually away. (Photo: Russell Cannings)

A huge highlight for me, was seeing this massive ELEPHANT SEAL! I've wanted to see one in BC for a long time and seeing this big boy was a real treat. This appears to be a young male but from what I could see I would estimate he was well over 1500 lbs! (Photo: Dave Fraser)

Elephant Seal from the forehead angle. Just bouncing up and down like a cork. If a cork was made of blubber and thick skin.

DAY TOTALS: Only counting species seen more than ~2km offshore out to a maximum of 67km offshore.

Saturday, September 13th

Surf Scoter--8

Loon sp.--4

Black-footed Albatross--26

Northern Fulmar--31

Pink-footed Shearwater--230

Buller's Shearwater--20

Sooty- Shearwater--84

Sanderling--1

South Polar Skua--3

Pomarine Jaeger--2

Parasitic Jaeger--3

Long-tailed Jaeger--1

Jaeger sp.--5

Common Murre--51

*Probable Scripps's/Guadalupe Murrelet--1+ (Only seen by 2 people. Read comments here)

Cassin's Auklet--80

Rhinoceros Auklet--33

Tufted Puffin--7

Black-legged Kittiwake--2

Sabine's Gull--2

California Gull--217

Herring Gull--5

Glaucous-winged Gull--1

Gull sp.--20

Sunday, September 14th

Click HERE for more photos

Common Loon--2

Loon sp.--4

Black-footed Albatross--33

Northern Fulmar--54

Pink-footed Shearwater--160

Flesh-footed Shearwater--1

Buller's Shearwater--33

Sooty Shearwater--78 (Very low count--last year on the same date I had 6000+)

Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel--2

Phalarope sp.--3

South Polar Skua--3

Parasitic Jaeger--3

Common Murre--60

Pigeon Guillemot--2

Marbled Murrelet--2

Cassin's Auklet--51

Rhinoceros Aucklet--42

Tufted Puffin--11

Sabine's Gull--3

California Gull--190

Herring Gull--9

Glaucous-winged Gull--22

Mammal List (Combined):

Fin Whale

Humpback Whale

Orca

Harbour Porpoise

Northern Elephant Seal

Harbour Seal

Steller's Sea Lion

California Sea Lion

Northern Fur Seal

Sea Otter

Mink