Tag Archives: Wildlife

Gannets – The End Of Napier Show

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Tuesday 24 February 2026 – The activity scheduled for us on our itinerary today was an opportunity to go and see a gannet colony at a headland south of Napier intriguingly called Cape Kidnappers; the expedition was called a “Gannet Safari”, which seemed to be over-egging it somewhat. The idea, it seemed, is that we would be picked up, bussed out to see some gannets and then bussed back again; I wasn’t quite sure where the safari bit fitted in, somehow. Anyway, it was an opportunity to get the Big Lens out, for the first time this trip. I was glad to do so, having lugged the damn’ thing around for over two weeks already.

There had been some confusion about where we should be and when in order to be picked up – was it really necessary to get to the pick-up point in downtown Napier 45 minutes before the appointed time? The answer turned out to be no, and in any case the redoubtable Esther had contacted the Gannet Safari organisation and told them to pull their finger out got them to agree to pick us up at our accommodation. Accordingly, a pick-up bus turned up outside our front door and we hopped on. I had expected it to go via the downtown pick-up point, but actually it just turned round and headed directly out of town. The driver, a very affable chap called Pete, took us to the HQ of Gannet Central

where the safari message was clearly reinforced, and we eventually joined a group who got on a bus

driven by Pete, which was the transport to where the gannets were. As we went, Pete explained how the day would work, and also pointed out a few sights as we went past them. It would apparently be a three-hour excursion, and I was wondering how on earth one could make gannets, lovely things as they undoubtedly are, interesting for three whole hours.

After a short drive on normal roads, the safari element of the excursion was borne in on us; Pete turned off on to a very rough track, signposted “Cape Kidnappers”, which led on to private land, a whole estate with a farm, a golf course and luxury lodges. This is surrounded by a predator-proof fence and is also a nature reserve with a number of indigenous species thriving – including kiwis.

We passed some feral goats

and some great scenery

before Pete stopped at a cliff edge to brief us further.

He told us a story about a rockfall which had happened on the cliffs behind him

and explained that we would have about 45 minutes to view the gannets once we reached the colony. As we carried on, he gave us some information about the gannets, their reproduction cycle and migration. We would be seeing Australasian Gannets, adults and juveniles alike. The adults were able to fly, however the juveniles at this stage could not, but could be seen flapping their wings as part of getting in shape for when they were able to fly. At which point they would migrate some considerable distance – maybe as far as Australia. In order to do this, each juvenile, having been born weighing about 60g, would have to be fed a huge amount of fish by its parents in order for it to develop to a weight of about 3kg; it would end up weighing more than its parents because it needed the extra bulk to sustain it on its long migration while learning to feed effectively.

The track to get out to the colony was very rough and up-and-down and it became clear that the bus was quite a robust piece of kit, having four-wheel drive and a low ratio gear box to be able to cope with conditions. There was, incidentally, a second Gannet Safari bus tagging along as part of this trip – probably a couple of dozen guests in total.

This stopping point was an opportunity to appreciate more great scenery

the peace and quiet of which was disturbed by some very considerable mooing of cattle in the distance. I wanted to capture this on video

but couldn’t do so because there was too much chatting going on between the people in the group. I suffer for my art, you know.

The track led us down to where the cattle were

and we carried on to where we would be able to watch the gannets. Cape Kidnappers was named by Captain Cook, after an incident in which local Māoris had kidnapped a Tahitian boy crew member, thinking that they were liberating a Māori prisoner taken by Cook’s crew. The lad escaped OK and made it back to Endeavour, and the headland was thus christened.

Overall, it was quite a journey to get to the birds, which explained why three hours were set aside for 45 minutes of gannet watching. I wasn’t sure what to expect: would we be on shore watching them diving? Would they be visible only in the distance?

As it turned out, no.

We could get very close to them and they completely ignored us (indeed, we had to duck as they flew by on occasions). There were lots and lots and lots of them;

probably around 5,000 – and that was just this colony; there were three others in the vicinity, too,


but ours was the accessible one.

There were adults

and juveniles.

The adults bond, by and large, for life, and normally produce one egg per year in spring, giving the chick time to develop enough in order to take on the migration as autumn comes. Some adults, though, had laid a second egg. We saw one which was incubating an egg

though it didn’t oblige us by giving us a decent chance to take a photo of it. We also saw a recently-hatched chick,

This one, sadly, would not have time to fledge before it was time for their parents to leave, and so would almost certainly die. With that, and the uncertainties of the challenging migration, Pete said that only about 25 or 30% of chicks reached maturity.

One human-caused survival challenge for the birds had been substantially dealt with – predators such as cats, stoats and weasels. There were many traps set about the place and, in this private landscape, the problem had largely been solved.

We saw some examples of courting behaviour and feeding of juveniles, and these are included in this short video that I was able to produced from our visit.

After this absorbing morning, Pete drove us back to our accommodation and we were able to relax for an hour or two. Then we popped along the prom to take a look at the outside of the National Aquarium, which was just a short walk away. Pete had been somewhat dismissive of the exhibits inside, and anyway Jane was really only interested in the mural which adorns it and, indeed, surrounds practically the whole building. Here are a couple of photos of part of it, to give you an idea.

When we returned to our accommodation, we went and sat in the back yard in the hope that we could meet other guests there and, OK officer I’ll come quietly, have a drink or two. Two new arrivals were already there and over the next hour or so all the other guests came out and we had a pleasant chat with them – six Americans and two Swiss – with Esther and Tom making sure that we had snacks and refreshment.

For our dinner, we’d booked a restaurant recommended by Esther, the Central Fire Station. This was located, intuitively enough, in the old central fire station building which we’d seen on our walking tour yesterday; and a very good recommendation it turned out to be. It was conveniently about a 15-minute walk away, so we were able to walk dinner off as we headed back to 415. On the way, Jane spotted some street art

(again, nice decoration for public toilets), and, in investigating that, we saw other examples around, mainly, we thought, left over from the “Sea Walls” festivals which ran in Napier in 2016 and 2017. So, of course, we had to take some photos of these other murals.

And so has ended our time in Napier. We have to leave tomorrow, and head towards Wellington. In a way, we’re rather sad; we’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time at 415 Marine Parade, which is a very comfortable, well-run and amiable place to stay. But leave we must. En route tomorrow, we call in to visit someone I haven’t seen for over 20 years. I wonder how that will go?

Kiwi bono?

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Tuesday 17 February 2026 – Apart from the Haka and Brendan McCullum, what New Zealand is best known for is the Kiwi, in all the various connotations of that word – an adjective to describe its inhabitants or its Rugby League team, a brand name for shoe polish (actually developed by an Aussie, but his wife was a New Zealander), a fruit… or the species of the country’s, possibly the world’s, oddest bird. Today we went to the National Kiwi Hatchery to learn more.

I had actually seen Kiwis before, on my last trip to New Zealand, in 1988. I was culturally backward in 1988, but even in those days I knew that Kiwis came from New Zealand, and somehow or other (there was no Google in those days) I found a place then where one could view the birds, in captivity of course, as they’re very difficult to see in the wild, being (a) shy and (b) nocturnal. The place operated 12 hours out of sync with actual time, so that daytime visitors entered a darkened environment in order to see the birds active. I have a clear memory of seeing at least one Kiwi, and possibly even photographing it, but that was nearly forty years ago, my memory has a habit of inventing things and I have no way of finding out if this is true until I get home and can look at the photos from that time. If I can remember where I put them.

So…today, then.

Jane had cleverly averted a major sulk on my part by ensuring I knew in advance that any sort of photography of the birds was not permitted. Kiwis are easily upset by unexpected light and noise, and I (grumpily) accepted that the centre had to be careful because most people (a) use phones, which emit a lot of light and (b) almost certainly have no idea about whether its flash will fire or not, therefore can’t be trusted. Armed with that foreknowledge, off we went.

The first challenge was finding the place. We had an address, but that turned out to be some kind of Māori-themed tourist trap. In the end, Google Maps gave us the place to find, the intriguingly-named Agrodome, which is not a Mad Max style cage fight but is actually a place themed around a family day out on the farm.

The Aardman theme continues once one gets there.

It’s actually quite the operation, running farm tours around what is quite a large area.

They have a variety of livestock, including sheep, goats and cattle. Sheep are their main focus; the gift shop and cafe is housed in the Woollen Mill, where they have an old carding machine

alongside the sales of Pure New Zealand wool in the shop.

They have a pig,

a Kunekune pig (“Kunekune” means “fat and round” in Māori). They also have an ostrich

which has many similarities to a Kiwi – flightless, grumpy and with very strong legs.

This similarity was pointed out on the guided tour that the National Hatchery operates. One is picked up at the Agrodome and taken by minibus to the hatchery centre.

The lass who drove our van was also our guide for our trip

and she did a very good job of explaining about the bird, its environment, its challenges and the role of the hatchery. She also emphasised that photography of the birds would not be permitted before leading us through to where they keep a few (currently three) kiwis in the same inverted time that I saw thirty eight years ago, switching day and night.  As it turns out, it was so dark in there that any sensible photography was simply not feasible anyway, so I didn’t miss out on a photo opportunity.

So: the Kiwi, then. It’s a weird, weird creature.

  • Its feathers are more like hair
  • It has whiskers like a cat
  • In many ways it’s more like a mammal. It has two ovaries; a low body temperature of about 38°C; and marrow in its bones (flighted birds’ bones are honeycombed and hollow to save weight)
  • It is very heavy, which is not a problem because it is flightless. Our guide passed around a couple of fluffy model Kiwis made to weigh the same as a chick and an adult and it was a real surprise: the adult female weighs around 3kg

It is thought to be the world’s most ancient bird, having evolved some 30 million years ago. It developed, of course, with no mammalian predators at all (only avian ones, like hawks or crows), so introduced animals such as ferrets and stoats have wrought much damage to the Kiwi population, and predate Kiwi chicks (though an adult will give a stoat a good kicking, apparently). Even hedgehogs are their enemies, since a hedgehog is not above making a nice proteinaceous meal out of a Kiwi egg.

Ah, yes. The eggs. They are enormous, compared with the bird in which they develop.

Somehow or other, a female Kiwi can develop an egg like that in about a week. An X-ray gives an extraordinary picture.

One wonders how uncomfortable it is for the poor bird to deliver it, but somehow she does, and she delivers it into the care of the male (with whom she is likely bonded monogamously). Then, because she hasn’t had anything to eat for a week because of the size of the egg, she goes off to find food, developing the while a second egg (from her other ovary), which she then also delivers into the male’s care. That is then her job done; she has no further interest in eggs or chicks at all.  The bloke Kiwi has to incubate these eggs for 80 days before they hatch. When they do, the chicks are basically fully-formed Kiwis who need no teaching about how to feed themselves, which is just as well, since the male makes no effort to teach them anything.

There are actually five types of Kiwi; the North Island has mainly Brown Kiwis, about 25,000 of them. The other types are: Rowi Kiwi, about the same size as a Brown Kiwi, but a greyer colour, and critically endangered with around 500 birds at the moment; Great Spotted Kiwi, the largest and toughest, spotted only on the South Island; Little Spotted Kiwi, which is, erm, small, and exists almost entirely in remote island colonies; and Tokoeka Kiwi, the Southern Brown Kiwi, which we might get to see later on this trip as it is not entirely nocturnal.

Unsurprisingly there were some stuffed kiwis for us to look at.  A male

The red tag is to allow tracking. If it’s not moving, it’s incubating an egg, which can be brought to the hatchery

and a female

To be absolutely certain in distinguishing one sex from the other it is necessary to analyse their DNA, but typically males are smaller and skinnier, and females larger and rounder. One can see their whiskers

and (if one looks very carefully) their nostrils, which are at the end of their bills, making them officially the birds with the shortest beaks in the world. It is possible to make a coat out of their feathers

and this would be for extremely high-ranking Māori. It takes a lot of birds to make a coat like that, and, these days, the species is under threat.  The National Hatchery exists to try to increase the chances of survival of Kiwi eggs. There are about 68,000 Kiwi left in all of New Zealand and the nation is losing 2% of its unmanaged Kiwi every year. The Brown Kiwi population is steadily declining by about 1-2% a year. Without ongoing support, experts estimate it will be extinct in the wild within two generations: only 50% of Kiwi eggs in the wild hatch; of those that do, only 5% of the resulting chicks survive to adulthood. The centre has overseen the successful hatching of nearly 3,000 eggs since it came into operation some 20 years ago.

The final part of our tour was to see the support the centre gives for hatching chicks. Eggs are located using a variety of tactics, such as tagging the males – if they’re stationary, they’re likely incubating – to locate eggs and bring them to the hatchery. They are carefully incubated, the chicks are microchipped, checked for health, measured and fed to bring them to the point where they are heavy and strong enough to withstand a stoat and so can be released back into the wild; they are then set free in the same region that the egg was found. This is not traumatic for either the male or the chick, since the former doesn’t care for the latter and the latter is pretty much ready for the wild and hasn’t imprinted at all on people during its time in the hatchery.  It’s a funny old business, but deeply interesting to learn about what they do and to find out how extraordinarily weird these creatures are.

That was our scheduled activity for the day. Rather than relaxing for the rest of it, Jane (of course) found Something Interesting To Do in the evening. That will be the subject of the next post. Heads-up – there will be a certain amount of photographic nerdery in it as well as some pretty pictures.

Day 8 – What a finale!

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Saturday 6 September 2025 – For the second time in two days, there was a touch of the unexpected – which worked out spectacularly for the better.  The “Expedition Morning” (i.e. plans being made on the hoof) was to take a short hike to a waterfall in Ekmanfjorden, just north of Longyearbyen.  The scenery that was the backdrop to this was pretty spectacular.

The second picture above is of a formation locally nicknamed “The Colosseum”. On the way to landing, Carlo, one of the Italians in the group, professed himself a little puzzled as to why.

We landed, disembarked the Zodiacs and hopped ashore for what turned out to be a candidate for the shortest hike in world history, because the sharp eyes of Agnese, Carlo’s girlfriend, immediately picked out something that suddenly became really relevant to, and fundamentally altered, the morning’s plans.

In the distance was a polar bear. The picture above was taken at the longest end of the Big Lens – 560mm for the photo nerds among you – so this would be the view through binoculars – and Agnese can take credit for a great piece of scouting. Despite the bear being over a kilometre away, there was no question of us continuing on land – and anyway, we now had something rather more interesting to seek out than a boring old waterfall.

This is the waterfall we would have hiked to

So we hopped straight back into the Zodiacs, which made the length of the hike not significantly different from zero, and headed off in the general direction of the bear in the hope that it would stay reasonably close to the shore so we could photograph watch it.

The terrain gave us a really good lesson into how careful one must be in these here parts, as the moraine had crests and dips in it, any of which could easily hide even something as substantial as a polar bear.

See?

We followed the shoreline towards where we’d last seen the bear – guided occasionally by the crew from the bridge on Kinfish who, being higher than us, could sometimes see the bear, albeit only through their snazzy stabilised binoculars. We passed the remains of a trapper’s cabin (Gunnar got a grin by suggesting it was the bear’s lodgings)

and had lost sight of it until suddenly someone spotted it. It had moved a surprisingly long way and was now in the water, swimming back towards where we’d last seen it.

It even swam back past the cabin, kindly providing us photographers with an interesting backdrop,

and then, even more obligingly, went ashore.

We could see at this point, then, that it was a female. How did we know? Because it was wearing a tracking collar; males’ necks are too thick for these collars, apparently.

So, there we were, with our final day presenting us with a brilliant last encounter.

The bear pottered bearishly along the shore, heading back towards the waterfall, which had suddenly become interesting again as a possible backdrop for photography. But then…

it turned back, to (hushed) groans from the photographers (we didn’t want to disturb the bear in any way but really wanted it in front of the waterfall). Perhaps it heard us because, happily, it once again headed towards the waterfall, and we got a lovely portrait of it positioned as foreground interest.

We carefully maintained the 300m distance from the bear as it wandered along the shoreline

and it approached and crossed a couple of smaller waterfalls, which involved it climbing up quite a steep slope

and pottering on.

After watching it quietly and following it for about an hour, we decided it would be best to leave it in peace, and so headed back to Kinfish, which was beautifully positioned for a final shot.

Of course, when we boarded, there was nothing for it but to have a celebratory glass of fizz, which Anni magicked out of her stores for us.

We then headed back towards Longyearbyen, with a ship’s cruise past the glacier there. I’d decided that I was more interested in checking out bear photos, but Jane persuaded me to take a bit of a break to register the passing scenery.

Today’s wonderful encounter gave the final evening, the Captain’s Dinner, a distinctly celebratory air.  There were bespoke cocktails for us to photograph drink

and captain Jesper gave a valedictory speech

before we sat down to a very, very fine dinner. Roger, our Swedish chef,

having done us proud all week, excelled himself, and Anni did her usual smooth job of ensuring that everyone was well lubricated.

So came to an end a memorable exploration of the northern reaches of the Svalbard archipelago – and beyond, of course.  Kuba had been keeping a map going of the places we called in at, and he also showed us the formal track as monitored by the ship’s instruments.

We’ve been extraordinarily lucky. With thanks to Kate at Whisper and Wild, we happened upon a wonderful ship with an excellent crew; we had really very kind weather; and have managed to see a wide range of the wildlife of the arctic in its natural, stunningly beautiful, environment. Can’t ask for better, really.

Tomorrow sees us travelling home. We have an appallingly early start in order to catch an early flight to Oslo and then onwards to London, but we depart with brilliant memories of a fantastic time in mainland Norway and Svalbard.

That’s the end of this trip, but, as you might guess, not the end of our travels. We’ll be off again very soon, so best keep an eye on these pages to see what we get up to.