Omaha Beach Bird Sanctuary

Here in NZ we have lots of birds that are critically endangered. Some of them live here at Omaha Beach, a small seaside town about 40 minutes south of us. The town itself is quite elite with all sorts of rich and richer people not only living in opulent houses but lots of holiday places too. I would estimate most of the properties as being worth well over $800,000 NZD.

Anyway to get through this part of the beach we had to enter a cage like area with sliding doors that automatically shut. Although there are rocks separating the main beach from the sanctuary there is still a a fenced off section where the birds breed. I think this is a great idea as where we live we have similar endangered birds that breed and we don't have fences only taped off areas with small signs that sadly people tend to ignore this anyway.

You may be able to see the poles in this photo, these have string linking them together as this is where the birds are breeding and feed in the estuary at low tide.

On the main part of the beach these Oyster Catchers were standing in the sunshine. Their conservation state is listed as "recovering". They are usually black with an orange bill and reached low numbers until they were protected in 1922, since then their numbers have slowly grown. They can live up to about 30 years old.

If you can see this little guy he's a Dotteril, their status is listed as "endangered" but they are slowly recovering. A total of 2075 northern NZ ones were counted in the 2011 breeding census. Southern Dotterils reached a low of 62 birds in 1992 but they have responded well to management and the post population fluctuated between 240 and 290 birds from 2005 to 2013. Since then there has been another decline and in 2015 there were fewer than 200 birds.

These ones are Eastern bar tailed Godwits and they fly long distances breeding in Alaska then fly to NZ staying over Summer and feeding on the flats from September until March. They are also protected but they are classed as "declining".

Sadly most people care about conservation here but we still get those who just don't care. There is suppose to be no vehicles, horses, cats, dogs, ferrets, stoats, rats and mice but people still drive in places like this, ride their horses and take their dogs near the birds and their nests.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday and My Corner of the World.