New Zealand Scaup yet anothere rare endemic bird

Trip Start Jul 10, 2008

Trip End Jul 10, 2011

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Where I stayed

Milford Sound Lodge

Flag of New Zealand Milford Sound, South Island, New Zealand
Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Back the next morning, a little fresher on the return leg to enjoy the beautiful beach trees lining the road. We stopped at the Chasm. A wonderfully sculpted gorge with water tearing though. The Homer tunnel again with the water coming down every way you looked. There were the tourist friendly Kea to greet us on the far side. There was the spectacular view down the Hollyford valley and the start of the famous Routeburn Track, the first of 6 tracks I'd done in New Zealand 15 years earlier! We also saw the endemic Yellowhead and New Zealand Scaup on the way back to Te Anau!

A beautiful valley on the road out of Milford Sound

Talking about the way back to Te Anau, 11am and we get a constant stream of cars and coaches all coming towards us and heading to Milford. I think what blew our minds most about the amount of vehicles, was this was by far the most we’d seen at any one time, far more than we’d see on the streets of Christchurch! My tip is if you go to Milford, if you can stay overnight, avoid the crowds!

New Zealand Scaup (Aythya novaeseelandiae) commonly known as a Black teal out in the rain

We decided Te Anau is just a tacky tourist town, although it’s location on the lake where the views is pretty special. We stopped lakefront turned on the gas and fried up one of our left over veggie sausages and made a nice sausage and cheese sandwich! We love the van for that flexibility! We probably wished we’d got a larger one with a toilet to give us some flexibility to perhaps stop in remote locations.

As always here is a list of new birds we saw in Fiordland
Yellowhead
New Zealand Scaup
Dunock
Pied Stilt
Pied/Black cross-breed stilt