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2017/18 was our best season ever with wonderful people enjoying the best of New Zealand nature with us! Hard to believe we were swimming in the ocean from October all the way through to Easter. This certainly made up for a wet winter. We know winter is on its way when the godwits (above) head…

2017 has been our best birding year ever. We are seeing fantastic birds across our region and across New Zealand. A winter highlight has been the New Zealand dotterels at Ohiwa Harbour, with over 60 of this wonderful endemic species wintering over. As I write they are coloring up into their breeding plumage. Our January…

Summer has been magic in NZ. Foris has been busier than ever with our Birding Tours taking off and our regular hiking options growing for the 5th straight year. Visitor feedback is humbling and testiment to the efforts we make to ensure they have a great time. We were lucky enough to be nominated by…

I am lucky enough to spend a large amount of time in some of New Zealand’s most beautiful places and every week see a menagerie of NZ’s endangered species. Over the last 25 years I have worked in the great outdoors both here in NZ and overseas. I have tried hard to create meaningful nature…

Two days out of Christchurch and 70 species of birds later I was tired and happy. A Black stilt was a highlight with only around 100 left in the world! Not the best picture, bad light and taken with phone via spotting scope! We had only landed for 30 minutes and saw this beauty along…

I love these binoculars. I have used a few over the years but tended to spend my hard-earned $ on camera equipment. This Xmas I shouted myself. The old adage buy once buy right comes to mind. They are great in low light situations especially in the forests where I spend a lot of time….

Daniel servicing a goodnature trap. Innovative self resetting rat/stoat traps. “Last, loneliest, loveliest. Most exquisite apart.” So said Rudyard Kipling when he visited New Zealand. Kipling visited New Zealand for 18 days in 1891 and continued to correspond with friends he made on that trip for most of his life. His words live on. New…

Cambridge High School Students doing a five minute bird count survey as part of their formal year 12 biology progreamme. One of the activities foris eco-tours are most proud of is our education program. People often ask what students get out of being in the outdoors but for us their faces say it all! Research…

New Zealand birding is not complete without seeing bar-tailed godwits. These stunning birds migrate from SIBERIA all the way to a New Zealand summer. If they can do it so can you! Get in touch with www.foris.co.nz to book a tour now!

Over the 2015/16 New Zealand summer we were inundated with requests for multi-day birding adventures. So we decided to put together a tour that highlights our favorite birding spots in New Zealand. In four dates in December/January 2016/17 Foris eco-tours has put together an 8-day birding extravaganza that for the lucky few will be a…

North Island Kaka are one of the forests loudest characters. Sadly there are only a few thousand left in the wild. Great work is being done across the country with pest free sanctuaries rebuilding healthy populations with a combination of supplimentary feed and artificial nest boxes. However it is always good to see completely wild…

Birding with foris eco-tours is all about you. We specialize in helping our clients find the birds they can’t. A great example is the bird below. The bird below is a blue duck or whio. These birds are rather rare peculiar ducks with extraordinary adaptions. Their preferred habitat is fast-flowing, clean, back country stream and…