The Gannets are returning to the Spit end colony and are gathering nesting material to start the next breeding season.

They collect kelp and seaweed from the beach along with other debris soon there will be thousands of them jostling for the best position on the conical shelly banks 2 km. or so beyond the Lighthouse.

One of the local school bus drivers and local school caretaker Bill Climo found a Giant Petrel wandering on the roadside at Puponga near the beginning of Farewell Spit recently.

Luckily our office in the main street of Collingwood is a Petrel station so he dropped in to show us the big bird on his way to the home of one of our local ornithologists who takes in wounded or un-well birds. Sadly this one didn’t make it and an autopsy was held and it was discovered that it had a virus in it’s gut.

We took their photo and put it on the website here.

Unfortunately we were too far away to revive it with our Petrel pump.

Have a look at last year’s movie below.

Farewell Spit Eco Tours guides and clients have had a grandstand view from the clifftops and a pod of 4 were seen yesterday, we think they are Humpback Whales. They migrate at this time of year and it is a rare treat to have them hanging around our part of the world. Have a look here at one of the spouts just beyond a boiling school of fish.

This year the researchers are fitting them to male birds in the firth of Thames on the North Island here you can see the video shown on TVNZ last night.

Just two weeks ago the beach in front of the Farewell Spit lighthouse was as flat as a flat thing that had just been through a press.

Now though with just a few windy days many small dunes have formed and are tumbling toward the end of the Spit.

The westerly wind is responsible for this.

Now the purpose of this was not to eat the Tern but to make it regurgitate the fish it had recently caught and was happily digesting as the sun set into the sea.

Quite a dramatic aerobatic performance ensued with the Tern almost looping the loop as it evaded the Skua. Eventually though, the inevitable happened and the Tern threw up the fish, the Skua swallowing it before it had fallen ten metres.

We do not see many Skuas but they are very dramatic when they appear.

Have a look here to see what they got up to last year.

This was one of those times.

Looking back at the Farewell Spit Lighthouse from near the Gannet Colony just as a rain shower passed over.

Have a look at our photo gallery to enlarge this image.

These ones are along the path at the foot of the lighthouse.

The concrete in the path is made of sand cement and shells, the shells were used instead of stones as there was  no gravel nearby.