Spur Winged Plover

Or Masked Plover or Pied Plover - known by all three names.

A really noisy bird, it screeches a sort of high pitched machine gun sound. They can be seriously agressive to other birds and can often be seen chasing off hawks. These plovers are self-introduced to New Zealand from Australia and are therefore considered natives. This one doesn't have a fully grown mask yet so I'm assuming it's a youngster.

I went for a drive around the block tonight to see if there were any birds about - as once again it was late when I left work and I was blipless. All I had seen was a group of starlings roosting in the top of a gum tree too far away for any decent pictures, then this plover very kindly flew down to the verge.

Thank you plover, you saved me from bliplessness.