For the birds! A birdless tour through Zealandia, a bird sanctuary.

Friends, by now you’ve likely caught on that I hate birds. Perhaps I’m still scarred by the twice we owned birds when I was a kid. Both ended badly.

And in my first apartment, our balcony was overrun by pigeons. I was constantly awoken by their cooing sounds. No amount of netting prevented them from nesting there. And I’ll never forget the sight of my roommate shooing one from our living room with a broom.

My sister can further attest to a driving moment where we believed we would die – in part, because a bird nearly flew into our windshield, and then because of the laughter that ensued.

And throughout my adult travels, birds have continued to terrify me. This, is one of Jay’s favorited photos from last year’s trip to Poland.

And this, is one of mine:

Suffice to say, birds are not my thing.

But Jay, it seems, has a real passion for them. His photographic aspirations have brought about a number of experiences including glowing worms, starry nights and Icelandic caves, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that he wanted to spend an afternoon in Wellington at Zealandia, a bird sanctuary.

And rather than experience Zealandia as mere tourists, we booked a tour to ensure we got the most of it. Unfortunately, Helen (our guide) had other plans.

I had a bad feeling from the moment we laid eyes on her. We were 10 minutes early, and the staff at the check in desk suggested we go get a coffee. Helen was not impressed. “I like everyone to be here at 10:55”, she told us. Well, that’s nice… but the tour starts at 11. Indeed, her tour started at 5 to, and we were late, missing out on the background of why Zealandia was formed in the first place. Nothing important… I’m sure.

Along with the other participants in our group, we headed out to the main sanctuary, full of lush greenery and… we could only hope, birds! (Worth noting at this point in our journey, that we were younger than our guide and the other 4 tour participants by 30-40 years. Jay has taken to birding early it seems.)

But the desire to ‘bird’ proved increasingly irrelevant as Helen led us on a tour of the trees, leaves and placards that dotted the clearly marked paths throughout the sanctuary. Of course, there were also birds, but getting information about them seemed to take a lot of effort. Helen’s responses to ‘what bird is that?’ mostly ranged from “oh, we’ve seen a lot of that one”, to “let me tell you more about this branch over here”. It should have been annoying, but we were too busy laughing about it to care.

She led us along the leafy paths telling us about the enormous trees and having us feel various leaves and bushes. Occasionally, she would point out a dip in the brush where she’d note that a kiwi ‘might’ have settled, sometime.

Potential site of a kiwi at night

But what we really wanted, was to take pictures of birds! And while Helen wasn’t so interested, the birds must have sensed it, since one decided to take a fly by at my head. I could feel the wind! It almost flew into me.

The group was amused! Helen was not. I had so rudely interrupted her musings about a log by asking what bird had nearly brained me.

Featured log.

We were not the only people on our tour who were hoping for some Ornithological action. Helen seemed to have trouble spotting the birds even when they were in front of us, but we persisted and weren’t the only ones slowing the tour with our bird spotting and questions.

Note, the woman pointing at a bird is NOT our guide.

And as we got deeper into the tour and birds heard we were looking for them, they came out in droves… again, often whipping by my head. Without any prompting, the other people noted that the birds seemed to be coming for me. One went so far as to comment that just as there had been a Birdman of Alcatraz, I was clearly the bird lady of New Zealand. I felt justified in my fear of birds. The struggle is real! Others see it too! Also, no one wanted to stand next to me.

Which wouldn’t be an issue, if not for Jay’s retirement goals of birding. A colleague had suggested before I left that my sabbatical would be a great preview of retirement. What it’s told me is that I have 20 years to find a new subject for Jay’s photographic affections!

After the tour we went on our own walk through the beautiful sanctuary and took dozens of bird photos we will never use for anything.