The Kowhai Valley and Shearwater Stream Important Bird Area comprises a disjunct site in the

Seaward Kaikōura Range Seaward may refer to: People: * Carolyn Seaward (born 1960), former beauty queen who appeared in the 1983 Bond film ''Octopussy'' *John Seaward (1786–1858), British civil engineer and mechanical engineer * Kevin Seaward (born 1983), Northern Iri ...

in the north-east of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

’s

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

, some 15 km inland from the coastal town of

Kaikōura Kaikōura () is a town on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It is located on State Highway 1, 180 km north of Christchurch. The town has an estimated permanent resident population of (as of ). The town is the government ...

. The site, at an altitude of 1200–1800 m above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

, has been identified as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

because it contains the entire breeding population of Hutton's shearwaters; about 100,000 pairs in two colonies. The larger Kowhai Valley colony, in the headwaters of the Kowhai River in the Uerau Nature Reserve, was only discovered in 1964, over 50 years after the species was first described by

Gregory Mathews Gregory Macalister Mathews Order of the British Empire, CBE FRSE FZS FLS (10 September 1876 – 27 March 1949) was an Australian-born amateur ornithologist who spent most of his later life in England. Life He was born in Biamble, New South Wal ...

in 1912. The smaller, Shearwater Stream colony is on private land at the head of the Puhi Puhi Valley.

References

Kaikōura District Important Bird Areas of New Zealand Seabird colonies {{CanterburyNZ-geo-stub