Day 28: Driving Tour Near Lake Hawea
Saturday 8 February 2014
65 °F
Today my family and I took a driving tour of the beautiful mountainous area near out comfortable hotel beside Lake Hawea.
Our first stop was for a small walk to some beautifully colored ponds called the Blue Pools (what an inventive name :-). Before we arrived at them, however, I found a few TOMTITS (South Island Subspecies):
This one is beside its nest:
A pair of them:
You can clearly see why these where named the Blue Pools:
A pretty river near there. Going along with the theme of obvious names, they should call it the Blue River:
Our second stop was at the majestic Thunder Falls. Only a slightly better name.
Our third stop was to a pretty waterfall of which I forgot its name, and on the trail to it I saw these odd mushrooms:
Since I forgot this waterfall's name, I will come up with another obvious, boring name for it. How about Pretty Falls? Falling Falls? :-) Whatever the name may be, I have now seen seven major waterfalls in New Zealand.
On the trail coming back from that waterfall, I saw yet another TOMTIT (South Island Subspecies). On this specimen you can clearly see the yellow breast which differentiates the South Island Subspecies from the North Island Subspecies, which has a white breast.
Since I didn't get any life birds today, the bird-of-the-day award will go to the TOMTITS which where the only birds to allow for photo ops today. Hopefully I will see more birds tomorrow when we travel to Glenorchy, another cure town nestled in the highlands of the Southern Alps (New Zealand's only true mountain range).
Stay tuned and good birding as always,
Henry
World Life List: 513 Species (no new life birds today)
Posted by skwclar 23:43 Archived in New Zealand
