Regions
Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:48 am – Posted by Mandy | 10 Comments
Guest blogger: Kakapo feeder Stephanie Gray
A curious kakakpo eyeballs kakapo feeder, Stephanie Gray
It was a quietly momentous occasion—the last two kakapo youngsters to be released this season stepping clumsily into new lives in the wild to the fanfare of bellbirds and kaka.Weaned from morning crop-feeds several days ago, the birds left their chick-pens in robust good health. Their first night in the bush was a mild one, the following day sunny, and their particular patch of bush is rich with hidey-holes.
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Published in: General, Southland / Stewart Island
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Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:29 pm – Posted by Mandy | 4 Comments
Guest blogger: Kakapo feeder, Stephanie Gray
Beginning with a hot-pink sunrise over Stewart Island’s Raggedy Ranges, my fifth day on Whenua Hou wrapped up beautifully with a game of petanque on Sealers’ Bay.
Sinbad, Photo: Stephanie Gray
In true island-style, we bowled over and around heaps of glossy kelp, skipped the jack to the creek’s edge, and considered the variable speed of steel through sand.
My feed-out route today took me southwest of the valley, through a verdant canopy of miro, kahikatea and rimu rustling with bellbirds, tomtits and ever-present kakariki. Having found my mud-legs by now, the climb is easy and sweet in the sunshine.
I find Heather’s feed station in a pool of dappled light, and laugh aloud at the state of it. Her water hopper has been ripped off the stand, and the snark (a receiver that collects information on the birds’ comings and goings) kicked to one side and chewed.
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Published in: Southland / Stewart Island
Tags: codfish island, kakapo, kakapoo recovery group
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Mon, 10 Aug 2009 9:27 am – Posted by Mandy | 14 Comments
Guest Blogger: Kakapo feeder, Stephanie Gray
By the look of the empty feed bowl, Sinbad enjoyed his kumara cubes and macadamia nuts last night.
Kakapo feeder Stephanie Gray gets to know one of the juvenile kakapo on Codfish island
He’s tidy too, leaving only a few crumbs, unlike the chicks who scatter lumps of pasty, half-chewed pellets up to two meters from their hopper—a kakapo feed station. I start to wipe down the hopper when, with a rustle of leaves and little grunt, Sinbad pokes his head through fern fronds.
The feed-out map and guide I carry mentioned that this particular bird may be roused from daytime slumber to visit, but I’m still taken aback at the sight of this beautiful, inquisitive creature. Sinbad ambles past again, lifting huge clawed feet high above the muck of peat mud and I blurt “Sinbad, you’re amazing. I love you.”
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Published in: Southland / Stewart Island
Tags: codfish island, kakapo, kakapo recovery programme
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Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:48 am – Posted by Guest | 1 Comment
Prior to heading out the next day, I checked the weather report and the forecast said ‘clear blue skies for the next few days’. After reading this I committed the ultimate sin in any trampers opinion, I left my raincoat behind in a further attempt to lighten my pack. By now I was down to the bare essentials; all I had in my pack was kea catching and banding gear, and food. This decision was one I would live to regret very soon into this leg of the survey.
Kea, Photo: C Rudge
That afternoon we made our way to our next survey point and again I headed to my spot alone. I found a comfortable position to wait and look for birds; I saw a mob fly past, back and forth a few times. They weren’t interested in me at all and so I caught up on my reading. After about an hour sitting there, dark spots started appearing on the pages in my book, looking up there was some very ominous clouds lurking about. I hoped that the Met Service’s weather prediction would prevail but the chance of that happening was looking very slim at this stage.
The rain started and was quite bearable for a time, but that didn’t last too long. I was out in the open and all I had to sleep in was a bivy bag. I rummaged through the sparse contents in my bag for something to protect me from the weather and found myself a rubbish bag, a good old ‘blak sak’. I made a head and some arm holes and wore that rubbish bag with style. I proceeded to make my way to Kirsty who was at the neighbouring survey point – which just so happened to be a hut with shelter and comfortable beds!
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Published in: Top of the South
Tags: kea, lake rotoiti, surveying
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Fri, 24 Jul 2009 2:32 pm – Posted by Guest | 3 Comments
For those of us lucky enough to live in the Waitakere Ranges with its awe-inspiring forests and thunderous coasts, communing with nature tends to be part of our everyday lives.
The many ways in which we do relate to the natural world and its other inhabitants has always been a source of fascination for me.
As a film-maker one often finds the best stories are on one’s own doorstep, in this case the activities of of local inhabitants, human and otherwise in our well loved local park, the Cascades Kauri Park in the Bethells valley.
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Published in: Auckland, General
Tags: ark in the park, Auckland, banding, catching, film project, robins, transfer, waitakeres
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Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:12 am – Posted by Tom | 1 Comment
As I come to the end of nearly two thoroughly enjoyable years observing New Zealand’s wildlife through my camera, I have become aware of many startling differences between my experiences of nature in Aotearoa and my home in the UK, and how these differences affect our perception of the natural world and the future for our wildlife.
The endangered NZ Dotteral, Photo: Tom Marshall
Since I flew in over the Southern Alps in late 2007, I have relished the chance to genuinely explore and discover New Zealand’s wildlife in a way rarely possible in the UK – by simply visiting the local shoreline, taking a tramp in the high country or by getting eye-to-eye with wading birds in the mud of Te Waihora Lake Ellesmere.
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Published in: Auckland, General
Tags: beach, endangered, nz dotteral, protection, vehicles on beaches
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Fri, 05 Jun 2009 3:45 pm – Posted by Guest | 1 Comment
Arctic tern, Canterbury, photo: Tom Marshall
A few weeks ago I blogged on New Zealand’s famous bar-tailed godwits and their annual migration from our estuaries to their breeding grounds further north, however a recent unexpected encounter reminded me of a record-breaking bird that makes the godwit’s journey look like a stroll to the local dairy.
Now we’ve all had that sinking feeling when you’re late for a first date; the car won’t start, the bus doesn’t arrive, or you get three blocks down the street and think ‘did I leave the stove on?’, but whatever the reason, the Arctic Tern I saw at the Ashley River recently will be disappointing his date big time.
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Published in: Canterbury, General
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Wed, 03 Jun 2009 9:28 am – Posted by Guest | 2 Comments
Guest blogger: Builder-cum-kea enthusiast Corey Mosen
Kea, Tom Marshall
Due to being such a terrific ‘pack horse’ on the first trip I was lucky enough to be offered another chance to help Clio again, this time at Mt Cook and this time with my expenses paid. Here we had the same objective; to catch, band, blood test and observe as many kea as possible.
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Published in: Canterbury, General, Native land animals
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Tue, 19 May 2009 12:33 pm – Posted by Tom | 5 Comments
Yellow eyed penguin, Andrew Walmsley
Guest blogger - Photographer, Tom Marshall
A comment my colleague and I often get as New Zealand photographers is ‘you must have had a wonderful time in Antarctica’. As much as I’d love to say ‘yes, it was awesome, but a bit chilly’, the truth is we’ve never set foot south of Dunedin and people are usually looking at our pictures of Fiordland Crested or Yellow-eyed Penguins.
Now I love ‘Happy Feet’ and ‘March of the Penguins’ with their iceberg-strewn backdrops as much as the next person, but it’s surprising how few people realize that we have some of the most amazing – and rarest penguins on the planet are right on our doorstep.
Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said recently of a new tourism drive ‘I doubt tourists will want to come to the South Island just to see a penguin’ – but why not? From recollection they were fairly thin on the ground north of the equator last time I was there, and with a million birdwatchers in the UK alone, I’m sure there’s plenty of people who’d willingly put up with the West Coast’s finest sandflies for a glimpse of a Fiordland Crested Penguin in his dapper dinner jacket.
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Published in: General, Marine and Coastal, Otago, Southland / Stewart Island, Threats and Impacts
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Fri, 01 May 2009 9:44 am – Posted by Guest | 2 Comments
Hauraki island branch secretary, Sue Fitchett
I am a self-described tree lover and so the proposed changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) have left me, and many others fearing for our notable and second generation trees.
Trees, as poet Ruth Fainlight wrote, are those witnesses, huge mild beings/who suffer the consequence/of sharing our planet and cannot/move away from any evil/we subject them to
The changes are effectively a costly opt-in system, whereby each and every tree will need to be scheduled, either as a grove or individually (In Auckland City the cost could be in the vicinity of $200 per scheduling) in order to receive some protection.
Banning tree protection rules, as the Government plans to do, will leave trees in 700 of Auckland’s 800 parks unprotected, and give landowners the ability to cut down any tree that is not in a reserve or listed in a district plan schedule.
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Published in: Auckland, General, Native plants and forests
Tags: arborist association, resource consent, RMA, trees
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