White-faced heron in New Zealand

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Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds 

White-faced heron -Pauatahanui inlet

We haven’t seen a great deal of this elegant and graceful bird over the past summer  but in the last week have managed to run into three –one at the Waikanae River then two more down at the Pauatahanui Inlet where there are sometimes up to 5 birds though they remain loners and unlike the spoonbills, are rarely seen feeding in groups.

You get a sense of how scary it must be to be inanga (small sprats) or frogs, waiting in what you think is adequate cover  as the sleek, fierce shadow of this bird with her x-ray vision comes stalking passed. We have left our film silent to try and gain a sense of the grace and peacefulness you find in wetland areas though at the start of the Waikanae section you can see the bird hoist an inanga out of the river and flick it up then swallow in one movement, spraying off the water. We had trouble keeping up with it. Then there were people and dogs walking along the opposite bank and that is what is causing the bird to bolt into deeper water. 

A heron used to be a regular at the dune lake and then, through autumn you might run into one feeding in the Wharemauku creek or at the back of the airport. We haven't seen them however, since the expressway excavators got going. A female would bring her fledgling down to feed. She looked pretty exhausted at the end of the breeding season and was initially very shy, but then seemed to get used to us hanging around with a camera. There was always plenty of food, which is the main attraction but being such big birds they are vulnerable to dogs, especially when they take it into their heads to get down into the creek. Yet we never saw one in trouble; nor any of the shags that also haunt the creek around this time of year.

White-faced heron feeding in the Waikanae River  

We have used a photograph of one of these herons perched in a stand of california pine (radiata), as a flyer for the plight of this rare dunelake. But now the birds have gone and so to, the stand of pine an indication of how quickly this haven is disappearing.

I will go to watch the animals, and let

something of their composure glide

into my limbs - Rainer Maria Rilke 

 Jill Studd's Blog

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