Miranda

Like any great adventure, it began with sleeping through the alarm. Not once, not even twice, but half a dozen incessant beeps were ignored before I crawled my tired body out of bed. I had aimed to reach my destination by sunrise. Sunrise was at 6am, I woke at 530am, the journey was over an hour long. I had messed up but the adventure was still on, even with my tardiness.

A flurry of movement, what I like to call I am late dance- stuffing a slice of toast in my mouth and throwing on clothes, I was out the door. Today’s adventure was something I had been looking forward to for a while. 

We were visiting Miranda, one of New Zealands bird hot spots. This is a place that many birds choose as the roosting site for their summer or winter. Or year long. The godwits flew all the way from Alaska to reach this spot for their summer vacation.  Luckily my journey was only an hour drive, not a six to eight day journey like the godwits. 

My first thought when I arrived was that this  landscape here is unusual. The cracked dirt around the boardwalk like a mosaic art piece, a sea of brackish tussocks flows around this, and pools of water flow through the centre of it all. Walking over the boardwalks that cut through this landscape, bird hides are spotted along the path. Each hide is decorated with images and information on the birds you may be able to see. There were only two other human souls out at this time, armed with lumbering telephoto lens.

You do not have to be an avid bird watcher to come visit, nor a photographer, it is a place that can be enjoyed for what it is. There does not need to be an intention to visit - just simply soak in the experience of seeing these beautiful birds. 

There is something almost whimsical about seeing a flock of birds all rise as one from the ground and create an almost endless feathered cascade. The avian stream undulating in the bright blue sky emitting squarks, caws and cawks. The stream trickles down, bird by bird, until each is again resting serenely on the ground. Until a hawk suspiciously shaped seagull swoops overhead startling them - or some other disturbance creates the rush of the bird stream to rise into the sky again. 

The only tip I would give is go two hours before or after high tide. Otherwise you may not see much. When we visited, we saw so many godwits and red knots and pied stilts only around two meters from the hide. You didn’t even need binoculars to see them.