“We’re going to do a patrol along the high tide,” McLean told 1News before setting off.<\/p>\n
“That’s where most of our birds are going to be. We’re going to be looking for any sort of bird carcasses, including land birds as well.”<\/p>\n
The Birds New Zealand beach patrol scheme has been running since 1951.<\/p>\n
Across the country, volunteers regularly walk stretches of coastline recording every bird they find, helping build one of New Zealand’s longest-running wildlife monitoring programmes.<\/p>\n
The information is used to understand bird populations, migration patterns, weather impacts and, now, to help authorities monitor bird flu.<\/p>\n
For seabird researcher Ariel Haswell, the patrols are about much more than simply collecting dead birds.<\/p>\n
“I frequently assist with the beach patrols out here looking for dead birds,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve sometimes performed research using the dead birds, so this is a very valuable tool not only to understand what’s out here in New Zealand but also that it’s contributing to science.”<\/p>\n
![\"Birds](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/birds-nz-volunteers-at-muriwai-beach-Q5GXJHZD2FBSZPTDZZF5VTXWXM.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Birds NZ volunteers at Muriwai beach (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
A dead bird doesn’t automatically mean bird flu<\/p>\n
Not long into the patrol, McLean spots a bird lying on the sand.<\/p>\n
Wearing gloves, he carefully examines it before identifying it as an Antarctic fulmar – a seabird that spends much of its life in the Southern Ocean.<\/p>\n
For many beachgoers, finding a dead bird today might immediately trigger thoughts of bird flu.<\/p>\n
McLean says that’s understandable, but not always accurate.<\/p>\n
“Dead birds on beaches are a common thing, especially in winter time, and it happens quite a lot,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We shouldn’t panic about one or two dead birds being found. But at the same time we should be very aware and we should be very careful.”<\/p>\n
Winter storms, food shortages and long migrations all regularly leave exhausted seabirds washed ashore.<\/p>\n
Bird flu is now another possibility – but not the only one.<\/p>\n
What should you do if you find one?<\/p>\n
– Don’t touch sick or dead birds. <\/p>\n
– If you find three or more sick or dead wild birds together, report them to MPI’s Exotic Pest and Disease Hotline (0800 80 99 66).<\/p>\n
– Take a photo if it’s safe.<\/p>\n
– Record the location and species if you know it.<\/p>\n
– Keep dogs away from the birds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While many people head to Muriwai Beach looking for surf or a weekend walk, Ian McLean and his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50,51,273,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-534324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-animals","tag-auckland","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}