At around 10 am, my father and I decided to walk along the shore of Lake Wakatipu, looking for birds. The lake held several waterbirds, most notable of which were large amounts of
New Zealand scaup. Mallards, Eurasian coots, grey teal and
little pied cormorants could also be seen. In the trees beside the lake, we saw many
silvereyes, along with introduced species such as
dunnocks, chaffinches, goldfinches, house sparrows, blackbirds and
song thrushes. The real star of the walk was a
great crested grebe swimming magnificently in the lake, which we took many photos of. On the way back I saw 2
black-billed gulls perched on the jetty, but at that point we had to hurry to the airport and I couldn't stop to photograph them.
It was good to see how common New Zealand scaup were at Queenstown
Goldfinches were far more successful in New Zealand than in Australia
Dunnocks didn't survive in Australia, but thrive in New Zealand
Chaffinches also didn't manage to survive the Australian climate
The great crested grebe is somewhat rare in New Zealand
We then flew into Wellington, to get to my father's conference.
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