Lantern Fertival and Murwai Gannet Colony

Summer is a GREAT time to be in Auckland because of all the festivals.  This past weekend was the Auckland Lantern Festival celebrating Chinese New Year.  It's been held for the last 17 years and we heard it is the biggest festival in New Zealand.  We spoke to an organizer who said they expected AT LEAST 100,000 people per day Sat. and Sun.  Wow!  There were swarms of people, but the Domain, a very large park,  could handle the throngs--no worries!

One entrance to the Lantern Festival

Crowded food stalls

Year of the Rooster

The displays are all lit up at night

This rooster was on stilts

Hundred of lanterns in the trees

Back to nature!  Daniel and Goldie joined us to visit the Murwai Gannet Colony (and have a picnic lunch, of course!)

At the lookout before we got to the colony

The gannet colony is continually growing on two vertical-sided islands.  About 1,200 pairs of gannets nest here from August to March each year.  The area is very crowded and the nests are just centimeters apart.  (Miles and Goldie both took great shots and I marked Goldie's with a "G".  Every angle was so stunning!  And within minutes, the colors changed from turquoise blue to grey as the clouds moved across the sky.)

Those little white dots are groups of gannets--G

G

G

 G

 

 

These two-and-a-half kilogram birds have a wingspan of two meters.

 G

Each pair lays one egg and the parents take turns on the nest. The chicks hatch naked, but within a week they're covered with fluffy down.

 Parents and chick-G

 Fluffy!

As they mature, they grow juvenile feathers and begin to exercise their wings in preparation for the one-shot jump off the cliff.

Mixture of adults (white) and youths (grey), some exercising their wings

Once airborne, the young gannets leave the colony and cross the Tasman Sea to Australia. A few years later, surviving birds return to secure a nest site at the colony.

 Adults searching for food

The views from the colony are very impressive. Murwai Beach extends 60 kilometers to the north  with a line of black sand between the surf and the sand hills.  The waves can be really big and this beach is a popular place for surfers.