Nankeen Night Heron Upokongaro

[sav]

Anyone thinking of going should endeavour to get there while the café is open! There is no access to the trees at the back if the place is closed and it seems that 9am to 3pm is winter opening time.
I was very lucky this afternoon (c4pm) to have one of the spotty juveniles in full view from the other side of Upokongaro Stream behind the café, it was more or less over the stream.

[imogen]

Despite the dodgy weather forecast I made the trip today and it was fantastic. Warm sunshine and I saw 4 out of the 5 birds. My first Nankeen night herons and it was absolutely great. This is my favourite pic.

[FlyingKiwiGirl]

Imogen you've had a "one out of the box" day birding haven't you Congrats on two life firsts!

[Colin Miskelly]

Hi all

Ormond Torr has just loaded some superb images of adult and immature nankeen night herons taken at Wanganui last month on New Zealand Birds Online: http://www.nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/nankeen-night-heron

Cheers
Colin

[Lena]

Hi, have been up a couple of times and find it is very difficult to get a good shot. Just looked at Ormond Torr's images and they are spectacular.

[craigsteed]

I thought I'd make a pre-conference visit to the Upokongaro cafe to see what was news about the Nankeen Night Herons. The owners weren't present but after my coffee I wandered out the back and looking up into the tree at the back corner of the cafe I was delighted to see one roosting up there again. It is nearly a year since someone posted about this so I thought this is good news pre-conference.

[simon.fordham]

There was a bird present, as described by Craig, yesterday morning. Tricky to photograph though.

The staff there were more than helpful and, although we bought some fare afterwards, there was no suggestion of this being a prerequisite for viewing.

The coffee was good, as was their home-made pie.

Simon

[George Hobson]

Hey guys.
I was hoping to do a trip up there with Young Birder early next year, so we were wondering if there were any night herons still left there?
Any help would be appreciated!!!

[Paul Gibson]

We were at the cafe this morning and the owner lady said the night herons are still there, they hear them as they depart each evening. I checked the trees but did not see any - they would be well hidden sleeping at that time of day.

[Michael]

In my opinion it'd be better waiting for the population to boom rather than go looking for them, they are pretty secretive so you'd be beter of waiting for larger numbers. But that's just what I would do.