Bird Watching 

Birds are New Zealand’s most colorful inhabitants. Before man arrived here, this was a world of birds and plants. New Zealand is a paradise for the ‘twitcher’. Here you will find some of the world’s most unique birdlife. There are the flightless birds; the kiwi, of course, and the waddling and shy booming parrot, the kakapo. The native forests ring with birdsong. Go into any of the National Parks and you’ll see and hear them but you’ll also see them increasingly in the towns, the clowning tui, the flittering piwakawaka (fantail) and the large and lumbering kereru (native wood pigeon).

There are more than 80 types of seabird that breed along our shore, some that migrate thousands of miles from the other side of the world. At the Royal Albatross Centre at Taiaroa Head you can see the only mainland breeding colony of royal albatross in the world. And a little further south, at Nugget Point, in Southland, you can see three penguin species including hioho (the little yellow-eyed penguin) as well as Hector’s dolphins, sea lions and New Zealand fur seals.