Orokonui Adventures
Earlier this year I ticked off a massive dream of mine, to visit Orokonui Ecosanctuary in Dunedin!
I’ve lived in the North Island all my life, so seeing South Island birds is really special. Compared to their North Island counterparts, South Island birds are more colourful, friendlier and ever so slightly cuter!
Some of the species I was excited to see were the pīpipi / brown creepers, the ngirungiru / South Island tomtits and of course the kakaruwai / South Island robins. I was looking forward to see the mokomoko / Otago skinks too, and also to spend some time wandering around the sanctuary.
To my surprise the Otago skinks were relatively easy to see, luckily I had calm conditions on my first visit so they were out sunbathing on the rocks, they’re much larger than regular skinks and easier to photograph. Their faces and markings are just stunning.
I have seen many takahē in my North Island travels, but this was my first time seeing them in their natural home, the South Island. There are two couples that live in Orokonui, this pair is the younger of the two, their territory is the upper part of the sanctuary, where they have this lovely pond to drink from. Takahē have an adorable habit of staying close to each other constantly and these two were no exception. I loved sitting and watching these two go about their day.
Korimako / bellbirds are one of the most vocal birds at Orokonui, their bell-like tunes can be heard all throughout the sanctuary. Their songs have similar tones to the tūī but bellbirds don’t make the strange clicks, cough and grunt noises like tūī do, I always say they sing the ‘nice’ parts of the tūī song. Tūī and bellbirds both seem to be in good numbers at Orokonui and could be seen gathering together at the sugar water feeders. It was really nice seeing so many bellbird fledglings, and I even stumbled upon a nest with three nestlings in it!
One of the birds I was determined to see was the utterly adorable ngirungiru / tomtit. I have only recently learned how to identify their calls in the forest, as they’re not a bird I get to see or listen to that often, so I wasn’t too familiar with the sounds they make. I find that once I get ‘in tune’ with a bird it’s much easier to find them amongst other birds, so I studied their calls before heading to Dunedin so that by the time I got to Orokonui I could hear where they were. I found one particular ngirungiru that was pretty friendly and snapped lots of photos of him, the males are easily distinguished by the females by their colouring - females are brown and white and males are black and white - although in the South Island their white chests have a tint of yellow. These little birds are one of my absolute favourites and I loved getting to see them at Orokonui. I have some more photos to share, I’ll save those for another blog post, stay tuned!
