spectacular! The West Coast has experienced some of the best weather the country has seen this summer – beautiful hot sunny days and star filled nights.  The local campground has been humming along with happy campers enjoying life at the beach.  We’ve had visitors on the boat tours from around the world, lots of New Zealanders discovering their own country and exploring “off the beaten track”, and visitors from The Netherlands, Germany, UK, Scotland, France and Canada and the USA.

We’ve had some outstanding bird sightings on the lagoon with the white herons, royal spoonbills, godwits, south island pied oyster catchers, dotterals, pied stilts and more.  It’s been a great year for the terns, both Caspian and white fronted terns.  Swade caught this one on camera drifting past on a morning trip – just posing for him! 

Although we have been predominantly viewing herons on the lagoon feeding, this one has found it’s favorite perch in the rainforest and we often see it here.  The colour contrast is amazing with the clear blue skies, rainforest and the incredible white of the herons feathers.

And of course, the early risers are always in for a treat.  We are happy to do early morning departures on request which are often for keen birders, or photographers.  This one was for a photographer who really lucked out with dramatic morning colours – Swade took this from the Wharf where the tours depart at about 6:30 AM – beautiful!

Being small operators, we rarely take time away during these busier summer months, but having a boat has its advantages!  The other night we headed off up the northwest side of the lagoon to the secluded North Beach of Okarito and camped out for the night.  After a meal cooked over the coals of a fire (salmon, grilled vegies and couscous and corn on the cob – yum!), we watched the sky fill with stars and saw the Southern Cross and Orion. 

Early morning we headed back in time for breakfast and to meet our 9 AM guests.  With slightly overcast skies, Mount Cook and Tasman rose up above the clouds and it was another stunningly beautiful morning on Okarito Lagoon.

It’s been an interesting spring and early summer in Okarito.  In November the mouth of the lagoon blocked off from the sea – this is a natural occurence when the southerly sea swells drop huge amounts of sand and sediment across the mouth and there is not sufficient rainfall flowing out from the lagoon.  It put a quick and early end to the whitebaiting season here, which, although disappointing is not as threatening to us as to the Kotuku – the Great White Heron.  These birds are nesting just north of Okarito and rely on the whitebait season for them and their newly hatched chicks.  Our heron numbers on the lagoon decreased as these birds struggled with the rising waters and had to move further afield for their feed.  The godwits also began to disappear as the tidal flats quickly became submerged.

Within 3 weeks, the decision was made to force the lagoon open with a digger which duly arrived and took most of a day to clear the entrance.  With a few weeks now of the lagoon being tidal again, and recent rainfalls all is beginning to settle into a more regular routine of flow.  And with that, there are good numbers of herons to be seen feeding, royal spoonbills and the godwits have returned once again.  They were spotted just yesterday by a keen birder from Britain who just happened by on his way to a conference in Christchurch and joined us for a  morning trip.  He spotted about 3 dozen godwits feeding on the flats.

The flax is beginning to flower, a bit late this year with cooler than normal temperatures, but the rata has had a brilliant flowering year.  We come right up to the tree featured here on the water – the show of red against the rainforest green is the perfect Christmas colouring!

Eastern bar-tailed Godwits at Okarito

Although we had heard of godwits returning to Christchurch a few weeks ago, we hadn’t seen them yet on the Lagoon, until last week.  A large grouping of them swooped overhead and landed on the flats nearby – good to see them back!

Okarito Lagoon has had very high water levels due to the heavy rainfalls received last week.  Lake Mapourika near Franz Josef Glacier flows into the Okarito River.  On our two hour nature tours you travel up this river into the rainforest.  It is also the main outflow of the lagoon, carving a deep channel through the lagoon on its way out to the Tasman Sea.  Although this channel is quite deep during all tides, roughly 2-4 metres deep, it is quite narrow.  To each side of this channel is where we see many of the wader birds feeding, particularly at low-mid tides,  such as the Kotuku, or Great White Heron, the Royal Spoonbills and smaller waders, such as godwits, oyster catchers and banded dotterels.   

These birds all require shallow waters for feeding and the condition of Okarito Lagoon can have a significant effect on the success of breeding birds.  The Kotuku rely heavily on the food source from Okarito.  Although earlier in the week we were seeing herons, they were mostly from a distance, or perched in trees in the rainforest. Yesterday’s trip rewarded us with a dozen or so feeding once again on the lagoon. The waters are now receding as the flow from the Okarito River has finally slowed. 

Kotuku - Great white Heron at Okarito Lagoon

The Paradise shelducks seem to be loving the weather, and one of our local pairs brought their 5 young out from the nest for a look about.   There are two pairs who have called the village home for a number of years and are quite used to people.  You can get great photo opportunities of them! The female, uncharacteristically more flamboyant than the male, is chestnut coloured with a white head.  The male is dark grey and black.  The young all look like males as they gain their feathers, then the females will gradually acquire white feathers around their heads and turn chestnut.   

Summer is unfolding in the rainforest with the first of the Rata flowers beginning to bloom. In a predominantly green forest, these flowers make for a delightful splash of colour.  Also flowering profusely is the native jasmine.  The manuka is continuing to come out slowly with it’s small white flowers, and the flax is providing a great source of nectar for the Tui’s and Bellbirds.

You have great opportunities to see all these birds and native plants in the rainforest on our two hour Nature Tours which run daily at 9 and 11:30 am. 

We look forward to your company on board in Okarito soon!