New Zealand Part 6 - Dunedin and Albatross!

We left Milford Sound in the rain, and had another long drive to Dunedin. We have quickly realised that New Zealand is much bigger than you think!
Dunedin from Signal Hill.

Up at Signal Hill we saw Blackbird, Tui, and Bellbird.

The town was full of Red-billed Gulls

and Feral Pigeons of course. But the highlight for us and what we were really looking forward to was a wildlife trip out to the Otago Peninsula.

We started by going to see nesting Yellow-eyed Penguins and Little Penguins, with the added bonus of a vagrant  Erect-crested Penguin and Fjordland Penguin.
Erect-crested Penguin,

 Fjordland Penguin,

 

Yellow-eyed Penguin and

 Little Penguin.

As we were viewing the Yellow-eyed Penguin a visitor came in to the adjacent pond,
Royal Spoonbill,

although the local Paradise Shelduck with ducklings weren't too happy with its arrival and chased it off after a few minutes. The offending Shelduck!

We walked along to the beach after viewing the penguins, and had a nice view of some New Zealand Fur Seals

and a New Zealand Sea Lion down on the beach.

After the Penguin views we boarded a boat to take us out to see the coastal birds and wildlife. We soon spotted Pied Stilt (aka White-headed) flying around, but I didn't even try a record shot as the boat was pitching a bit and the light wasn't good, we had just had some rain and the skies hadn't cleared.

Anyway we soon saw the primary target for this trip,
Northern Royal Albatross

Just a few of the many photos I took!

There were lots of other brilliant birds about too, large numbers of different species of cormorant;
Bronze (or Otago or Stewart Island) Shag

  Spotted Shag,

 as well as Great Cormorant, Pied Cormorant and Little Pied Cormorant.
We had some great views of NZ Fur Seals,

 Lunchtime for the Pup!

Around the headland we came across the Spoonbill colony:

The Albatrosses were magnificent so I can't resist another photo....

Finally on cruise back to Dunedin, we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of some Dusky Dolphins;

So that was New Zealand. We saw 71 species of bird while we were there, with our itinerary it was much more difficult to see birds and unlike Australia where we saw lots of birds in the cities, it wasn't the case here. However we did see some quality!

So time to wend our way home, via Christchurch and a two night stop in Hong Kong. So sorry one more post to do, before we end up back in Birmingham.