Friday 13 December

I got a text from Sav Saville this morning notifying me of the presence of 8 Australian pelicans at Patea. They had been reported originally in the Taranaki Daily News (https://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/9511947/Patea-fits-the-bill-for-rare-Aussie-visitors) , then reflected on the BirdingNZ.net (https://www.birdingnz.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3147). Paul Gibson has already been there and managed to photograph two of the birds in flight as they took off heading south. It would be worth keeping an eye open for them at river mouths and coastal lakes.