02 Oct 2018

Request for help: keen birders who have visited the Auckland Islands

Birds New Zealand is preparing a major publication on the birds on the Auckland Islands. Co-author (and Heritage Expedition founder) Rodney Russ has provided information from his personal diaries and Heritage Expedition trip reports, but it is likely that your diaries and hard-drives hold information and images that could provide further detail, and possibly verify records of some of the rare vagrants reported.

Rare vagrant bird species reported from the Auckland Islands in Heritage Expedition trip reports and bird lists include: Antarctic fulmar, Antarctic petrel, Arctic skua, Arctic tern, Australasian shoveler, black shag, black-billed gull, blue petrel, broad-billed prion, Buller's shearwater, chestnut-breasted shelduck, Cook's petrel, fairy prion, Fiordland crested penguin, greenfinch, grey teal, Hutton's shearwater, king penguin, lesser knot, little penguin, paradise shelduck, pectoral sandpiper, pomarine skua, red-necked stint, royal penguin, Salvin's prion, sanderling, sharp-tailed sandpiper, short-tailed shearwater, Snares crested penguin, soft-plumaged petrel, South Georgian diving petrel, South Island pied oystercatcher, South Polar skua, spotless crake, thin-billed prion, tree martin, Westland petrel, whimbrel, white-bellied storm petrel, white-throated needletail (spine-tailed swift), Wilson's storm petrel and yellowhammer.

If you have records, descriptions or images of these or other vagrant species from the Auckland Islands that you are interested in contributing to this project, please contact lead author Colin Miskelly at colin.miskelly@tepapa.govt.nz. Even a simple "I saw this species at this location on this date" may provide verification or detail that is currently lacking.