Kuaka/Bar Tailed Godwit 2

Kuaka arriving with Cuvier on the horizon

Sometimes you can be at the right spot at the right time. I think that this might have been a first! Last Friday, we were walking along the beach at Waikawau, wishing that we had a bucket. There were enough cast up tuatua for a good feed. Further along the beach we could see an ongoing territorial dispute between a pair of N.Z. Dotterels.

Then, in the distance, over the sea, a fast moving group of birds appeared. It was a twenty strong flock of kuaka! They put on a superb display of high speed, close formation flying and then landed in disputed territory.

The male N.Z. Dotterel made a number of full tilt running approaches to the kuaka in an attempt to move them on. Some were nearly skittled, their sidestep not being up to it, but they made a good stumbling recovery and could not be moved. The male N.Z. Dotterel eventually took up a watching brief and the kuaka quickly started to probe the sand for food.

It is possible that they had just made landfall after their epic flight from Alaska. More likely, they were beach hopping on their way to feeding grounds in some southern estuary.