Katikati Bird Gardens and a Fabulous Cottage

Our fabulous little cottage that is actually in the sanctuary itself. Love the Maori art work statues welcoming us home.

Back deck where we had coffee in the mornings and dinner at night. Not only gorgeous but the New Zealand wild birds make the most tropical noises.

Double click above to see the 2 little guys in the tree talking with each other. Well, you can see them but their songs are amazing.

Our private entrance to the bird gardens as it is open to the public from 9-4 everyday.

After the damned rooster stopped crowing (5am sharp until 7am or so) we were surprised by a really loud noise on our roof. We found Mrs. Peacock prancing around up there. Not sure why but what a sight!

Each morning we had many visitors looking for a handout. We thought they were simply being friendly until we found out that visitors here are allowed, and encouraged, to feed them. The caretaker said we could feed them our remaining rolled oats. They loved them.

Each day we packed our lunch, our books (and freaking glasses…getting old has its drawbacks), water and rolled oats for a nice mile or two stroll around the 10 acre garden.

Below are a few pics of the gardens without the birds stealing the show. We are not into wandering botanical gardens or anything like that but we made an exception for this exceptional place.

No good bird garden would be complete if not for the neighboring cows. Fabulous!!

As a former teacher I am used to being ignored by uninterested students so this made me very happy. They were all very interested in the Pythagorean Theorem I was discussing. Or was it the rolled oats in my pocket?

So many birds, so little rolled oats. The male peacock rules the roost here. So much for the pecking order amongst chickens.

Around every corner we ran into a mother hen with 3 or 4 adorable little chicks. They could not have been but a few weeks old. As they are used to being fed by visitors, they were very interested in interacting with us. Their little peeps were wonderful.

The winner of the cutest bird family has to go to this mother duck and her three ducklings. Check out the video of them below by double clicking it:

Talk about a BAD hair day!!

We named our friend here Herman. He tagged along with us on our walks even if we were not feeding him. He found his mate after a while and we took a video of me feeding the two of them. Check it out below:

This was the nicest looking chicken of the place. Patient bird with us trying to orchestrate a nice picture before it ate its lunch.

Amazing how accurate these birds are with their pecking. Not once did they peck my fingers while I fed them.

Not sure what these little piggies of a bird species are but they did keep us company while we did some reading in the garden. Note, Herman is close by to protect us from these birds and the neighboring chickens.

My buddy here looks artificially large but the extinct, flightless bird called a Moa reached up to 10 feet tall and weight upwards of 450 pounds. It was hunted into extinction over 600 years ago by the newly arrived Maori people.

Here is the little bastard that woke us at 5am sharp every day. No food for you!

We took a nice drive to a neighboring beach on the Bay of Plenty. Lunch, reading and a bit of people watching are always good things. We watched a grandfather with his two granddaughters motor into shore on their small dinghy. The grandfather then got his tractor to haul the boat home with the girls sitting right in the boat. Very amusing and cute.