Spoonbill ballet

A colony of royal spoonbills breeds on the seaward side of Tairoa Head.

Snowy white with a "royal" crest on their head and long, spoon-like bills they are aptly named. They use their long spoon bills like combs to sieve the water for krill, crustaceans, and small invertebrates at low tide along the inlets, bays and estuaries of the peninsula.

They are new arrivals here. Blown over the Tasman Sea from Australia some decades ago they have decided to stay and are slowly populating the shores of New Zealand.

Unlike the graceful albatross that revel in the winds, the gangly spoonbills struggle in it. Adapted to an altogether different life their grace lies not in the shrieking open sea swells, but the calm, placid waters of the harbor.