Zealandia on a good day

I’ve had a good few days at Zealandia Ecosanctuary last week and wanted to share some photos! The weather here in Wellington hasn’t been the best lately so I have been making the most of the sunny days and heading to my favourite spot in Wellington to see the birds that I love so much.

Whenever I visit I’m always trying to spot the tītipounamu/rifleman, which were introduced to the sanctuary earlier this year, but a bonus this week was seeing this black-morph pīwakawaka/Fantail! Black-morphs are a rare colour variation of our adorable native Fantails and are especially rare in the North Island. I have seen this particular bird a couple of times this year but I failed to get photos of it, so I was glad to finally get some good photos of it!

I had a particularly good day last Thursday and saw 9 Rifleman! Including 4 in one tree. Considering there are only 60 birds in the whole sanctuary, 9 in one day is pretty amazing. I also got a couple of good photos which I’m pretty pleased with, as they are our smaller native bird and are a massive challenge to photograph. I already can’t wait to go back to the places I saw these birds, and hopefully they’ll be in the same spot as last time!