TomAM
January 18th, 2012, 06:43 PM
My local patch is a 27km stretch of SH12, between Ruawai and Dargaville in Northland NZ.
We have been here about four years now, having come from the East Midlands back in the UK, where I was lucky to have a number of good local patches. But here I have found it hard to find a good local patch. Access to land here can be hard and it can mean long journeys to good birding sites.
So now I find SH12 to be my patch! And its not to bad, I get to work it twice a day six to severn days a week!
A large area is open pasture land with some native bush. The road runs close to the wide Wairoa river with sp.... Mangrove and Raupo and a kind of Pampas grass.
Common day to day birds are usually Australasian Harrier, Mallard, Australian Magpie, Spur-Winged Plover but you do get the odd rare bird as I have seen Australasian Bittern by the side of the road too! Incidentally close to Tokatoka, an extinct Volcano.
We have been here about four years now, having come from the East Midlands back in the UK, where I was lucky to have a number of good local patches. But here I have found it hard to find a good local patch. Access to land here can be hard and it can mean long journeys to good birding sites.
So now I find SH12 to be my patch! And its not to bad, I get to work it twice a day six to severn days a week!
A large area is open pasture land with some native bush. The road runs close to the wide Wairoa river with sp.... Mangrove and Raupo and a kind of Pampas grass.
Common day to day birds are usually Australasian Harrier, Mallard, Australian Magpie, Spur-Winged Plover but you do get the odd rare bird as I have seen Australasian Bittern by the side of the road too! Incidentally close to Tokatoka, an extinct Volcano.