The Short Story

A quick, easy summary

New Zealand has many wading birds – oystercatchers, stilts, dotterels, sandpipers and godwits. You can often see them poking about in shallow water at estuaries, harbours and beaches.

Features

Although they feed and breed near water, wading birds do not swim. Species with shorter legs feed close to the water’s edge, while longer-legged waders such as stilts wade further out. Dotterels, with shorter beaks, peck near the surface. Godwits, with longer beaks, poke deeper into the mud. The wrybill has a strange beak that turns sideways, for hooking and spooning up food.

Feeding, breeding and migration

At their seaside feeding grounds, waders eat worms, shellfish and insects from wet sand or mud. To breed, many move inland to lakes, rivers and farmland, where they eat insects, worms, grubs and spiders. They scrape a shallow nest on dry ground, and run around soon after hatching.

Some species travel amazing distances, migrating from the northern hemisphere to New Zealand’s feeding grounds each year.

Common New Zealand waders

• Pied oystercatcher. This has a black back and white front, a long red beak and pink legs. They mainly breed in the South Island, then fly to Kaipara Harbour, the Firth of Thames, and other North Island spots.
• Bar-tailed godwit. In September, godwits fly 11,000 kilometres non-stop from Alaska in only five or six days. Arriving exhausted, they gather at the same North Island places as the pied oystercatcher, and at Christchurch’s Avon–Heathcote estuary. They eat a lot to get strength for the return trip, departing around March.

Rare species

Several native species are rare or endangered. Cats, wekas, rats and skuas attack them, and people may accidentally drive over nests on beaches or river beds.

• Chatham Island oystercatcher. In 2004 there were only 220 birds. Conservation workers have placed old tyres on the beach, for a nesting place safe from high seas. Numbers may soon reach 500.
• New Zealand dotterel. In 2002 there were about 1,600 of these sandy-brown birds. One group live in the North Island at Māhia Peninsula. Another is at Stewart Island, where they nest on hilltops. When breeding, their front turns red.