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Diving New Zealand – Goat Island

10,000 Birds

Diving has taken me to places like Belize, Fiji, Vanuatu, and Egypt, places that coincidentally are fun to bird. Particular highlights were a massive Long-tailed Stingray , pipefish (long relatives of the sea horse), nudibranchs, goatfish and a New Zealand Eagle Ray. Kina, or Sea Urchin. I was a diver before I was a birder.

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The Pelican is not a New Zealand Bird

10,000 Birds

Dipping for fish An extinct endemic form of pelican in New Zealand would have represented another family lost, like the odd form of owlet-nightjar and New Zealand’s lost members of the hawk and eagle family. But it seems the story wasn’t so clear cut. And, sometimes, New Zealand.