Where the Birds Forgot to Be Afraid

The night before, we had searched Stewart Island for little blue penguins and listened for kiwi calls in the dark.

Part of me wanted to stay out longer.

But I knew what was coming the next morning.

Ulva Island.

This was our first day of the expedition that felt truly focused on pure birding. We checked out early, left our bags at the Seaview Hotel desk, grabbed a quick breakfast from the café around 6:30, and started walking toward the water taxi.

Thankfully, we still had not fully transitioned to New Zealand time, so the early morning wake-up was not as brutal as it probably should have been.

Before we crossed the bay, we were entertained by a local New Zealand fur seal who seemed completely convinced he owned the beach.

I think his name was Bruno. Whether that was his actual name or a name I gave him later is impossible to say now — but Bruno it is.

As we walked across town toward the other side of the bay, Kākā filled the air with wild, prehistoric-sounding calls. It reminded me of something straight out of Jurassic Park.

New Zealand birds did not just look different. They sounded different. They made the whole place feel like it belonged to another timeline.

At the docks, the water was so clear that giant jellyfish drifted below us like living glass.

The water taxi itself was tiny — a little six-person boat that gave off the feeling of a large enclosed jet ski. The ride to Ulva Island only took about five minutes, but it felt like a crossing into a different kind of place.

After several days of planes, rental cars, an overnight cruise, and a rough ferry across Foveaux Strait, this little boat felt almost intimate.

Almost immediately after stepping onto the Ulva Island dock, we noticed something moving in the water below.

An octopus.

A large octopus moved across the rocks, changing color and texture as it blended into the bottom. I had never seen one in the wild before, let alone watched one actively using camouflage beneath my feet.

We stood there watching it shift, disappear, reappear, and somehow become part of the seafloor.

Finally I looked at the group and laughed: “Well, we’ve made it about five feet and we’re doing really well.”

That turned out to be the perfect summary of Ulva Island.

Ulva Island felt different from almost every place I had birded before.

Not simply because the birds were rare.

Because they were present.

The island is predator-free, and you could feel it in the behavior of the birds. South Island Robins followed us along the trails. Bellbirds filled the forest with musical, metallic notes that sounded like a Willy Wonka factory coming to life. Tūī moved through the trees. Kākā passed overhead. The whole forest seemed occupied.

This was not birding where everything stayed hidden at the edge of the habitat. This felt like walking through a forest where the birds still belonged at the center of the world.

At one point, we crossed paths with a guide leading a small group that was trying to find a South Island Saddleback.

They searched the area for a while, then moved on.

Almost immediately after they left, one landed right next to us.

It was one of those classic birding moments where the bird appears the second the pressure disappears.

One of my biggest targets was Mohua, the Yellowhead.

We could hear them far up in the canopy, which somehow made the search more frustrating. The birds were there. They were singing. They were just staying hidden above us.

At one point I even laid down on the trail trying to find the right angle through the branches.

No luck.

For most of the morning, the forest kept the Mohua just out of reach.

Somewhere along the trail, I spotted a large bird high in the trees and immediately went into mystery-solving mode.

The angle was bad. Branches blocked the view. Every time I moved, I thought I might finally figure out what I was seeing.

A new species? Something rare? Something exciting?

Eventually I found the right angle.

Kererū.

Again.

New Zealand somehow managed to create a pigeon so large and colorful that I repeatedly forgot I was looking at a pigeon.

At another point, the trail passed within a few feet of a sleeping New Zealand fur seal.

After meeting Bruno earlier that morning, I had developed a healthy respect for seals.

This was not the moment to set up for the perfect photo.

We quietly slipped past, grabbed a quick iPhone snapshot, and kept moving. Nobody needed the interaction to become more exciting than it already was.

By the end of our time on Ulva, we had seen nearly everything we had hoped for.

Everything except Mohua.

Then, as we were making our way out, the forest finally gave us the bird we had been hearing all day.

One appeared right in front of us.

Not high in the canopy. Not hidden behind layers of leaves. Just there.

After all that searching, the perfect last-minute look felt like a gift.

The next thing we knew, we were back on the water taxi.

Back at the Stewart Island dock.

Back taking a few more photos around town before catching the ferry, retrieving the car, and beginning the long drive back toward Queenstown.

That night ended with Thai food and our first normal hotel in days — an IHG property that felt almost strangely ordinary after Stewart Island and Ulva.

But the thing I remember most is not the drive or the hotel.

It is the feeling that Ulva Island offered a glimpse of something older: a version of New Zealand where birds filled the forest, robins followed people, saddlebacks appeared beside trails, and an octopus could stop you five feet from the dock.

Even after a full day exploring, it still felt like we left too soon.

Ulva Island felt like the birding heart of the expedition so far.

But the next leg would shift the story again — back through Queenstown, into the air, and north toward Wellington, where conservation, city life, and Middle-earth mythology would begin to overlap.