Pūkorokoro

Sunday I drive over to Pūkorokoro for the return of the kuaka | godwit. I’m there four hours before high tide, and decide to walk the wetlands while I wait.

There are infinite kaireka | skylark, a pool of frogs, one lonesome matuku | heron, several stands of poaka | pied stilt, a lone tōrea | oystercatcher, a lone tūturiwhatu | dotterel, three tarā nui | caspian tern, three empty bird hides with little to look on, a half-dozen kakīānau | black swan and wārou | swallow – and then all of a sudden the kuaka return. 

Wave upon wave. A circing maelstrom. A helix of swirling murmurating godwits and huahou | red knot. Some set down in the wetland, some peel off and move further north up the coast. They are incredible to watch – mesmerising, enchanting, transfixing.

I hurry back towards where the kuaka make landfall, slip on a stile and crack my lends hood. I settle in the grass and snap snap snap, 2,500 photographs of kuaka and ngutuparore | wrybill. 

I’m slowly joined by campervans and their occupants, all with binoculars or long lenses or telescopes, a veritable paparazzi of bird watchers. We exchange sightings and point out birds. A sandpiper has arrived. a small flock of kuriri | pacfic golden plover land – my first experience of these regal Arctic adventurers. Ruddy turnstone and red knot join the kuaka, in much smaller numbers.

Kōtuku ngutupapa line the shell bank in the shimmering heat. I head back that way, take on water at the car, loop back to the main host, and sit and watch again, completing a second loop before heading away.

The high tide hides don’t appear to have water at high tide – perhaps the shell banks and wetlands have shifted so much these hides are less well positioned than they perhaps once were?

Five-and-a-half kilometres with no elevation gain over three-and-a-half hours.