The Kaipara Harbour is an important summer feeding site for thousands of migratory waders who take the South-east Asian flyway route to and from northern hemisphere breeding grounds. It is also home to thousands of New Zealand’s wetland, coastal and seabirds.
The Kaipara Harbour is the largest harbour and estuary complex in New Zealand and the Southern Hemisphere. Best time for birding is high tide and an hour each side.
The harbour covers about 94,700 hectares with more than 900 kilometres of coastline. Nearly half of the harbour is intertidal mudflats, and it has a high tidal range and strong tidal current that flows in and out between the North and South heads. The Kaipara’s dangerous bar extends about seven kilometres out to sea, creating difficult sea access to and from the harbour.
The Kaipara Harbour is nationally significant for a range of waders, seabirds and shorebirds, and is also an important snapper nursery. It is estimated that about 80 per cent of the West Coast snapper fishery originates from within the Kaipara Harbour.
Over the past 150 years the harbour has provided timber, seafood and sand to the people of the Auckland region with resulting depletion of its natural resources. Sustainability concerns in the harbour now include the impacts of fishing, sand mining, aquaculture, sedimentation and reclamation, as well as a proposal for tidal power.
Despite this, it is still has many important and accessible birding sites around its coastline. The first of these articles focuses on the Southern Kaipara. This is followed by an article on birding sites in the central and northern Kaipara Harbour.
Southern Kaipara Birding Sites
The Southern Kaipara provides a full day’s birding. From Auckland City, take the North-western Motorway, and follow the signs for State Highway 16 to Helensville, (about 50km and 45 minutes). Just before Helensville township, turn left at the first roundabout towards Parakai, and follow South Head Road. Helensville is the last town and provides a handy stop for provisions.
From Parakai, follow South Head Road for 13 kilometres, to right turn at Tuparekura Road. Drive down here to good views of a large wetland lake on your left. A telescope is ideal here, but binoculars should also be useful. Birds to look for here include the New Zealand Dabchick, Australasian Grebe, Grey Teal, Grey Duck (Pacific Black Duck), NZ Shoveller, Paradise Shelduck, Pukeko, Pied Shags (cormorants), Black Shags, Black Swans, and Mallards that inhabit the lake. Other birds seen there have included the Australasian Bittern and the Chestnut-breasted Shelduck. This vantage point also provides a sweeping view of the Tupare wetland reserve and the South Kaipara coast.
Shelly Beach coastal birds
For a first glimpse of coastal birds, turn right back onto South Head Road for another kilometre to the right turn for Shelly Beach. Shelly Beach Road takes you down to the waterfront (5km) and the wharf where there is also a small reserve, cafe and nearby toilets.
Birds to see here include White-fronted Terns, South Island Pied Oystercatchers, Red-billed and Black-backed Gulls. Caspian Terns and Pied Shags are also common, and often seen flying from the coast out to low-lying ‘Rat Island’ about 3km offshore. In the autumn and winter, this area also supports small numbers of Royal Spoonbills, usually 50 - 100. In season and at high tide, these can be seen on a large rock just south of Shelly Beach. To access the rock, drive about 1km back along the road, to right turn, Omana Avenue. At the end of Omana, you can park in the cul-de-sac and walk south-east down a short walkway that ends in stairs to the beach. From these stairs you look south at the rock which at high tide will usually have Royal Spoonbills and/or Pied Shags.
Lake and beach walking
Back along Shelly Beach Road, turn right and continue north along South Head Road. There are several options for birding that may not necessarily yield high numbers of birds, but provide pleasant walking and bird watching with opportunties to look out for Australasian Bittern and other coastal and wetland species including ducks and cormorants. After another 13 kilometres, turn left into Donohue Road, and right into a picnic area with a reserve down to the shoreline of Lake Otatoa. Scan the lake for wetland bird species.
Then turn left back on to South Head Road, and drive about one kilometre to Te Rau Puriri Regional Park on your right hand side. A small sign by cattle-yards marks the entrance. Te Rau Puriri Regional Park, is a farm park reserve of 247 hectares with walking tracks down to the coastline where ancient Puriri trees frame a coastal reserve. Allow several hours to explore this park and its coastline. Grassland species such as the introduced Greenfinch, Yellowhammer, Goldfinch, and Chaffinch are often plentiful, as well as Kingfishers that breed in some of the banks beside the walking tracks. Flocks of White-fronted Terns, shag species, and Variable and South Island Pied Oystercatchers can often be seen roosting along the shell-beach at high tide.
Sand dunes and wildlife refuge
Once back on South Head Road, follow it north to Waionui Inlet and Papakanui Spit (via unsealed Trig Road, Tasman Road and Inland Lagoon Road, abt 8 kms). This area is a wildlife refuge with extensive sand-dunes and a long sand-spit that changes according to the dynamics of weather and tides. A kayak or canoe is needed for the best access to the spit and the sand island at the northern tip, but telescope and binocular views of the spit may reveal waders such as Bar-tailed Godwit, Ruddy Turnstone, New Zealand Dotterel, Red Knot, and possibly whimbrel and curlew species. Target bird here is rare Fairy Tern that roosts, forages and breeds on the sand dunes of Papakanui Spit. There are about 40 Fairy Tern in New Zealand and 2-5 regularly seen in this area, and across the harbour at Manukapua, (see link to northern section article below).
Wetland and coastal birds can also be seen here. North and South Head have some of the most extensive sand dune habitats in New Zealand. The drive back to Auckland takes about two hours.
For more detail on the wetland and coastal birds of the Kaipara Harbour, go to this page on theForest and Bird website.
Click here for information on bird watching in the Central and Northern Kaipara.
