Twitcher notes

We have seen a penguin!! And it was Claire who spotted it! It was on a rock where we were looking for seals. It was very likely to be a Fiordland Crested penguin, a very rare penguin and by rights we shouldn't really have seen it as they are out to sea at this time of year so it was very lucky spot, no pics of it though as it was too far away even with my super duper 18-200mm lens.

Bellbirds are absolutely everywhere, for me this is a very good thing as they have the sweetest song click here for a listen - http://www.backpack-newzealand.com/articles/topic51.php.

Tomtits and Fantails are really cute to look at but are more likely to pick a fight with you than if you walked down most provincial town streets at kicking out time.

We took a fantastic night trip in a place called Okarito to see some Kiwi's, it was at night due to them being nocturnal and it was a night of keeping very still and quiet trying to ignore mosquitoes buzzing in our ears while also trying to see the birds thru the mozzi head net. We were lucky enough to see 3 birds, one of them for about 5 minutes, it was a chilly but very rewarding experience. The type of Kiwi we saw was the rarest of the 7 types so we felt very lucky.

Given that this is a country that has water everywhere there are plenty of wading birds a lot of them come here from Siberia/Alaska!

On the way to the Routeburn track outside a place called Kinloch we came across 2 NZ falcons fighting over some roadkill until disturbed by some foreign hoons ragging their van looking for the Routeburn road (that wasn't us by the way!)

We are still keen to see a kingfisher and Claire is desperate to see a Royal Spoonbill, the name is enough to explain why!