New Zealand Birds

Wonderful photo show!!
Such beautiful birds.

Very Nice NM_Jane!!

Great variety of bird photo's Jane! Thanks so much for taking the time to share them with us! I'm so glad you got to take this wonderful trip!

I really enjoyed seeing all these new birds. Love the color of the wings on that kea. The goldfinch sure is colorful too. Great job on all of them, thanks!

Thanks everyone. It was great seeing so many new birds and my pleasure to share them with everyone here. Sometimes we all take our local birds for granted because we see them so often. I love my Gambel's Quail; but seeing them everyday, I sometimes tend to forget what beautiful birds they really are. When we were in Kuranda, Australia, we visited their birdworld attraction. In addition to a lot of native parrots, they had a number of "exotic" birds . One of the exotic birds they listed (even though we didn't actually spot it) was the California Quail ... which looks like a cross between our Gambel's Quail and a Scaled Quail. It just goes to show that exotic is relative to where we live and what birds we commonly see or don't see.

(Sorry ... I still can't type ... LOL)

This message was edited Dec 13, 2009 2:47 PM

Nice pics!

The heron (post #7364973) is a White-faced Heron.

Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Song Thrush and Yellowhammer are all European birds, introduced to New Zealand (and so is Mallard, of course).

Resin

Thanks Resin. I had wondered about the white-faced heron; but didn't see an white on that one. As always, I appreciate you setting me straight.

Jane

Such a nice group of photos Jane! How lucky for you to be able to take such a trip! Australia is one on our wish list of trips we would love to do.

Thanks Nanny! If you ever get the chance to visit Australia, I would highly recommend it. The one thing that really impressed me was the people. Everyone we met was easy going and friendly ... even in the big cities. And another thing was that we felt completely safe walking around on our own, even at night in Melbourne and Sydney. You wouldn't catch me walking around my own block at night here in the US.

I'm usually not one to promote a particular company; but with all of the flights, ground transportation, sightseeing and hotel stays in 13 cities, there was no way we wanted to handle all of those reservations on our own. We ended up doing Collette Vacations' "Complete South Pacific" tour; and we were very pleased them as a tour company.

Just in case you or anyone else is interested, I set up a Shutterfly share site and posted a whole bunch of the pictures from our trip, If you want to check it out, the URL is:

http://mikesjanestravelpics.shutterfly.com/

Jane

Thanks Jane. I looked at 1 album and I'll check out the rest later.

Very nice Jane, like the Kea and finches.

Jane, both the Aussie and the New Zealand bird series are just great. You're so well organized! I never knew that the Kea had the red under its wings and on the rump. Congratulations on seeing a Fijordland Penguin. Oh, we call Cormorants "shags" as well. There's a colloquialism, if someone's REALLY wet, (as in saturated, not corny), "as wet as a shag on a rock".

Hi Jane
You did really well to get all those great birds shots while on holiday. hope you enjoyed your your time in NZ it looks like you have. now must go and look at your Aussie part.

New Zealand is on the top of my list of places to visit someday. Thanks for posting these pictures. I feel like I have had a mini visit.

Thanks again everyone. From all of the bird pictures I took, it almost looks like we went on a "birding safari"; but my bird watching was just a small part of our trip.

Margaret … I love that colloquialism. It rained the day we went to Milford Sound (where I saw the Fjordland Penguin); but I didn't let that stop me from standing on the deck of the boat taking pictures. Before the cruise was over, I was definitely "as wet as shag on a rock". I may have even had a few icicles hanging from my hair too.

Boot … We loved New Zealand and had a great time there. The scenery was absolutely beautiful. I wanted to steal a newborn lamb and Kea to bring home with me; but I knew I'd never get them through customs. I just looked on the map to see where Blenheim is. I don't think we actually drove through there; but we were real close on our drive from Christchurch to Picton. We didn't get to spend any time in Picton … we just caught the ferry from there over to Wellington.

Cpart … If you get the chance to go, New Zealand is well worth visiting. We originally had just planned on visiting Australia; but it didn't cost much more to include New Zealand, so we did. It's unfortunate that New Zealand tends to gets overlooked as a tourist destination because it's a pretty small country. Even though we included New Zealand an afterthought, we were so glad we went there.

Jane

Wonderful pictures!

you would have been real close Jane. Glad you have had a great time here and Australia.

cparts hope you get here, would be nice to catch you up.