A southern giant petrel spotted on Brophys Beach in last night's wind is today being fed up in an effort to see it return to the skies of the southern oceans.

Kuaotunu Bird Rescue lady Annemieke Kregting collected the male bird from the beach and says it's not injured but underweight and very tired.

This southern giant petrel was collected from Brophys Beach, in last night's wind.

'Southern giant petrels do fish of New Zealand waters but don't usually come to land,” says Annemieke.

'He's well off course, weak but otherwise quite well.

'He's just really tired and underweight at 3kg.”

Annemieke is now spending time feeding the bird up to 1kg of food a day – including chicken livers and hearts, squid, oxheart, pilchards and cheap beef – in a bid to see it return to 5kg in weight so it can be released.

'I just need to feed him up until he's 5kg in weight which is huge – it's the size of a pelican.”

'He'll be with me for a little while I feed him up on chicken livers, pilchards, squids – whatever I can get my hands on.”

The southern giant petrel, collected from Brophys Beach in last night's wind, gets used to human contact.

Annemieke says she doesn't see big birds like this often – she's only rescued one other southern giant petrel a few years ago, and had an albatross dropped off last month after a big storm.

'I can't 100 per cent say how this is happening but after storms I always quite a few calls about birds blown off course and on beaches – and they are quite often large birds.

'They land on the water, off course, and are too weak to take flight again so get taken in by the tide.”

Anyone who wants to donate ‘food' for the southern giant petrel, can give Annemieke a call on 07 8695695.