BIRDING NEW ZEALAND DAY 3: Invercargill to Stewart Island

The morning began just as the forecast said it would: cloudy and rainy. Thankfully, as we were eating breakfast the rain cleared up, allowing us to see tui, New Zealand bellbird and silvereye at close range from a nearby feeder. We decided to do one last fernbird walk, just after the rain ended. This was extremely successful: by whistling them in we got close views of 4 fernbirds, one of which was just sitting on the trail!

This fernbird was far more trusting than the warblers of other countries

We checked out of the B&B and briefly visited the Southland Museum to look at Henry, the 110-year-old tuatara. We had lunch, dropped our rental car off at the Invercargill airport and then took a shuttle to the Stuart Island ferry's departure point. On the jetty, multiple kelp gulls, red-billed gulls, great cormorants and little pied cormorants could be seen. At 4:30 the ferry left. The conditions were extremely calm, but even so I saw several distant white-capped albatrosses and many lifer common diving-petrels. We also saw a medium-sized penguin swimming on the waves, but it dove before we could identify it.

This common diving-petrel came quite close to our boat before diving down

When we arrived at Stewart Island it was 5pm. We checked in to Stewart Island Lodge and walked down to get dinner at the South Sea Hotel. On the way, we saw several kaka, many tuis, 2 paradise shelducks and some variable oystercatchers.