Nankeen Night Heron Upokongaro

[fras444]

Heard and saw my first night herons last night from a spa pool while staying with my partners parents. They live on Longacre road.
Four birds flew out of a Kahikatea on their property down to the stream and not long after, heard three or four more birds. Going home today so next time I'll do some more looking with my binocs around their property.
Quite stoked to tick them of my list.

[Paul Gibson]

That is interesting to hear of night herons up Longacre Road, a new location for them, and not too far from the Whanganui River. I have to do with Forestry up the end of the road, so how far up is the property where you saw them?

[jimmifinn]

I heard multiple birds calling between 9.10pm and 9.30pm on both Saturday 23 January behind the Café and Monday 25 January alongside the river opposite Upokongaro.. No sounds on Sunday! Despite calls from 4+ birds, I did not see any fly upriver for their night feeding.

On Sunday at the cafe, I had a great coffee and cookies but no Nankeen night herons sighted.

[jimmifinn]

It is great to know that the Nankeen night herons have returned to the café at Upokongaro. We have been hearing multiple calls in the evening S they prepare to leave for the nights feeding and on Tuesday 26th Jan at 8.58pm, I managed to photograph two in the gum tree as they readied to leave for the night.

Unfortunately the ambient temperatures at this time of the year, mean they don't need to come out Nd warm in the sun in late afternoon. That and the heavy leaf on the deciduous trees mean it is almost impossible to catch a good view of them.

Jim N

[phil hammond]

On Tuesday evening I hung around Upok from 8 pm until 9.25. I didn't hear or see the Upok birds but 3 from further upstream flew over the top of the cycle bridge at 8.40 pm
Phil Hammond
Wrybill Birding Tours NZ
Great Birds Real Birders

[jimmifinn]

The Nankeen that flew into the gum tree behind the café.

20 March Nankeen IMG_0705.jpg (250.76 KiB) Viewed 1588 times

I made a late afternoon visit to Upokondaro today. As I was checking the gum tree with binoculars at 5.05pm, a mature Nankeen flew from the Stream up into the depths of the gum tree and was lost from sight. At 5.15pm it walked out on a branch and sat in the sun looking at me for 5 minutes before noncholantly turning and walking back into the dark again.

Another heron relocated in a poplar tree across the Stream and was joined at 5.30pm by one of two herons in the gum tree.

I saw at least three birds and possibly four.

It is good to see them back and sunning themselves in view again, but with so much leaf on the deciduous trees, I was unable to see again the two birds in the poplars.

Jim Norris

[Threeps]

Yesterday afternoon a group of three of us made the trek from Taranaki to Upokongaro to check out the Nankeen Night Herons. We had missed this on a previous visit when we arrived after dark to find the cafe was closed and the birds were gone.

Yesterday, being Easter Saturday, we thought we were a good bet for a coffee, a cake and a Nankeen Night Heron. Sadly, the cafe was closed. We had a good look from the far side of the road but nothing was stirring. We walked back towards the Makirikiri stream to see if we could see anything from the bridge looking back between the cafe and the trees but again to no avail. Walking up Makirikiri Valley Road we noticed a well trodden path leading down from the road on the left and into the trees. Following this brought us directly into the area where we suspected the herons roosted. Three pairs of eyes spread out and after about 20 mins we were rewarded by one bird flapping languidly from one perch to another! It sat there for a couple of minutes in full view about 10 metres away, watching us as avidly as we were watching it, before it again lazily changed positions and vanished into the top of the canopy. We could see exactly where it went but despite intense scrutiny of the area with our bins we didn't see it again.

Sitting on the picnic tables across from the cafe we broke open our flasks of tea and some snacks and sat in the sun watching a steady stream of parched visitors turn disappointedly away from the closed cafe. Disappointed we were not! What a spectacular creature this heron was. Beautiful colours and bright intelligent eyes.

[wghabbott]

3 flew out of the wooded area at 7.30 last (Sunday) night. Two flew down-river and one flew up-river

[wghabbott]

Oops. Make that Saturday night.

[Dave H]

We had good views of 2 adult birds in the gum tree behind the house next to the cafe on Tuesday around 4:30pm.

They were visible from the stream behind the cafe, not the SH4 side. Someone in the garden threw some green waste over the fence just after we got there which made a bit of noise and must have woken the herons up as they made a few croaks which was how we knew they were actually there. After a bit of searching, we managed to locate the two, but there may have been more.