Finally returned home after an extended family roady to finish off the most epic year of our lives: a family ‘NZ Big Year 2016’ with myself (Scott), my wife Helen and our 3 sons Ollie (10), Zef (7) and Jay (4). We managed to finish off the year with an impressive grand total of 153 bird species!
Over the year we’ve had 14 holidays, have travelled from Cape Reinga to Bluff and loads in-between, while still working full-time and the kids going to school (most of the time!). The tour and sightings were all on the NZ mainland apart from Tiritiri Matangi, Poor Knight Islands and Albatross Encounters.
Our family were mostly doing the ‘Big Year’ as a way to discover NZ’s stunning nature and birdlife, and to lead us to places in NZ that we may not normally visit. We decided to set a goal of 100 bird species for the year to add a challenge factor to it all, which we flew past that goal in August and finally finished off the year with 4 of us on 153 species, and Jay on 144. We had rule that 4 of us had to see a bird for it to count (with our youngest asleep for a few of them so his total is a touch less). We were new to birding at the start of the year so are very happy with our total (especially having such young children involved).
There’s been so many stunning and interesting birds and places, that it’s really too hard to separate out highlights. Discovering the beauty in swamps and wetlands (previously overlooked), making it to post-earthquake Kaikoura and Albatross Encounters, ALL the birds we saw, Miranda, the stream of MEGAs and vagrants that popped up at the years end, and the list goes on … to be honest the year was one great highlight with the annoyance of work interrupting it. The biggest misses (after many fruitless searches) were Cirl Bunting, Little Owl, Wood Ducks and Yellowheads (heard in treetops of Haast Pass though).
Doing this with our children has been extremely fulfilling. They’ve had such a fun, explorative year and have learned so much about NZ birds as well as NZ geography, environment, conservation, being quiet (ha ha!), as well as having had the pleasure of discovering the importance of ‘Water Treatment Plants’ around the country! Kids being kids don’t have the attention span of adult birders so sure there were times where it was a bit boring for them, i.e. sitting in a hide for hours while we scanned the waders (Angry Birds on the iPad helpful for this), or having to keep quite for extended times (for those skittery birds) but they were always super keen to sight any bird that we pointed out, and when they were the one to spot something new they just about exploded with excitement. The boys can rattle loads of birds names and facts, and are constantly pointing out birds to us and others - we’re very proud of them and how much they’ve all learned.
It was also great to meet lots of you fellow birders as we went along - everyone we met was always so friendly, helpful and very passionate about birding (as we have become).
This forum has become the most valuable resource we’ve had for the year (though only discovered it around May!), so a big thank you to all the contributors for posting various interesting sightings and insights - we’ve learned so much from it, and to all those that have replied to our posts, and of course thanks to Neil for setting the site up. Also couldn’t have done it without our 2 hefty NZ birds field guides, eBird and the NZ Birds Online website.
A year is a long time to dedicate to a project as a family, and to be honest when the year ended there was a touch of sadness as we came to the reality that we were no longer in the midst of ongoing exploration, discovery, adventures, and all the planning and research involved in the search of our new feathered friends. So to sum up - what an incredible year, our best year ever, and to do as a family was amazing - the memories and time spent together are priceless. I think this would make a great activity and challenge for any family to do no matter how big an effort you want to make (though we got a bit obsessed as it was so interesting and fun).
So we’ve definitely got the birding bug and have no plans to stop (it’ll just be less frequent now) so see you out on the trails. There’s still a lot more of NZ to see and a lot more birdlife to discover…
Cheers
Scott, Helen, Ollie, Zef and Jay Brooks
Our Great New Zealand Bird Tour 2016
PS. Was thinking that our boys may have become the youngest people to see that many NZ birds in a year, especially the youngest one. Is there any records anywhere for this sort of thing?
———————————
You can also check out our other post about this that we did earlier in the year: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6003
.
Our Great New Zealand Bird Tour 2016 - Completed - 153 species
- ourspot
- Posts: 349
- Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:24 pm
- Location: Tutukaka Coast
-
- Posts: 76
- Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2015 11:48 am
Re: Our Great New Zealand Bird Tour 2016 - Completed - 153 species
Wow! That is an impressive tally. Really cool to see the map showing the areas you visited. (You missed Christchurch.lol.) It was great meeting you and the whole family up in Napier at the South marsh rail station. Perhaps we will meet again.
Cheers
Mike Ashbee
Cheers
Mike Ashbee
-
- Posts: 263
- Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2013 9:49 am
- Location: Whanganui
Re: Our Great New Zealand Bird Tour 2016 - Completed - 153 species
What a great story. We were pleased to catch up with you at Foxton, and then later in Whanganui. Sorry you missed the Nankeen night heron. By the way your map does not include these two places? Look forward to meeting up again sometime.
- rukuhia
- Posts: 161
- Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2015 8:29 pm
- Location: Hamilton
- Contact:
Re: Our Great New Zealand Bird Tour 2016 - Completed - 153 species
Awesome guys, something you and the kids will never forget, it was great to meet up at miranda and muriwai, maybe catch up next time at the poor knights.
Bob
Bob
Bob Rigter
-
- Posts: 699
- Joined: Sun Mar 03, 2013 1:04 pm
Re: Our Great New Zealand Bird Tour 2016 - Completed - 153 species
Great report and brilliant achievement. Particularly liked your piece on Pureora and couldn't agree more - wandering around a swamp is a highly underrated past time.
Unlucky not to get Yelowhead and little owl - any other day......
(And hopefully it hasn't put your children off the outdoors and conservation for life!!)
Cheers
Jim
Unlucky not to get Yelowhead and little owl - any other day......
(And hopefully it hasn't put your children off the outdoors and conservation for life!!)
Cheers
Jim
- Liam Ballard
- Posts: 236
- Joined: Mon Oct 03, 2016 7:51 pm
- Location: Mt Eden, Auckland
- Contact:
Re: Our Great New Zealand Bird Tour 2016 - Completed - 153 species
Awesome! Tbh I wish my parents decided to do something like that! Great job guys!
Liam Ballard
- ourspot
- Posts: 349
- Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:24 pm
- Location: Tutukaka Coast
Re: Our Great New Zealand Bird Tour 2016 - Completed - 153 species
Paul Gibson wrote:What a great story. We were pleased to catch up with you at Foxton, and then later in Whanganui. Sorry you missed the Nankeen night heron. By the way your map does not include these two places?
Hi Paul - Great to meet you as well. The map doesn't include Foxton, Whanganui, Pureora or Opotiki as they were all in January this year so weren't actually part of our '2016 Bird Tour'. And we'll be back in Whanganui sometime for another crack at the Nankeen Night Heron :)
mikullashbee wrote:Wow! That is an impressive tally. Really cool to see the map showing the areas you visited. (You missed Christchurch.lol.) It was great meeting you and the whole family up in Napier at the South marsh rail station. Perhaps we will meet again.
Hi Mike - Had to leave some places for another trip so Christchurch will definitely be on the cards one day/year :) And great meeting you at one of the strangest birding sightings to date - a bunch of us chatting away and taking photos within 5 metres of spotless crakes and marsh crakes which were happily feeding away and didn't mind our presence in the slightest - great day :)
Jim_j wrote:(And hopefully it hasn't put your children off the outdoors and conservation for life!!)
Hi Jim - Definitely hasn't put the kids off, though they are pleased it's going to be at a slower pace from now on :)
- mark ayre
- Posts: 163
- Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2010 8:31 am
- Location: Wanaka
- Contact:
Re: Our Great New Zealand Bird Tour 2016 - Completed - 153 species
Well done to you and your family, you are an inspiration to birding and an example of how to gets kids keen on birding and nature. It does illustrate also what a good way to see the country by birding. One point you missed out going to Stewart Island, you will have to put that on your list for next time.
- ourspot
- Posts: 349
- Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:24 pm
- Location: Tutukaka Coast
Re: Our Great New Zealand Bird Tour 2016 - Completed - 153 species
mark ayre wrote:Well done to you and your family, you are an inspiration to birding and an example of how to gets kids keen on birding and nature. It does illustrate also what a good way to see the country by birding. One point you missed out going to Stewart Island, you will have to put that on your list for next time.
Hi Mark - Thanks for the kind words. We had a month in the lower part of the South Island in September and decided not to include Stewart Island on that trip as there's loads to explore there and it deserves a separate visit another time rather than squeezing it in for a couple of days. Even thought we were away nearly 100 days throughout the year there's still lots of places we didn't get to - which is good as there's more exploring to be done :)
- bobatkinson
- Posts: 40
- Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:22 pm
Re: Our Great New Zealand Bird Tour 2016 - Completed - 153 species
Fantastic adventure Scott and congratulations to you all for your grand total for the year. An inspiring story. Thank you for sharing it with us. Bob Atkinson.