Weblog
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 8:51 am – Posted by Mandy | No Comments
Waitaha River, Photo: Zak
Guest Blogger: Forest & Bird Field Officer, Debs Martin
Hey, do you remember the first time you plunged into a cold mountain stream and resurfaced, your breath shocked from you, your body quivering with the cold and the excitement of the water. If you’re like most New Zealanders, you’ll have a favourite river hidden not too far from home.
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 3:04 pm – Posted by Mandy | 3 Comments
Guest Blogger: Forest & Bird Marine Advocate, Kirstie Knowles.
Line fishing, for many of us, is an imaginative exercise.
And if you’re anything like me, before you drop your line into the water, you’ll press your nose almost against the water’s glassy surface, and peer into its inky depths in an attempt to see what bounteous life it contains.
These days if you’re lucky the tug of your line will help to answer this question. If not, your imagination is left to fill the gap, so to speak.
The statistics will leave your imagination reeling.
The UN has estimated that 70% of the world’s fisheries are now exploited to their limits, over-exploited or depleted. In this year’s Best Fish Guide , several types of fish have slipped in our rankings. Two of them are types of tuna (bigeye and yellowfin).
Mon, 12 Oct 2009 9:09 am – Posted by Mandy | 11 Comments
Guest Bloggers: Campaign Manager for the Welcome Swallow, Phoebe Borwick & Haddon Smith
The Welcome Swallow is a newcomer on the New Zealand native bird scene. Winging it from Australia in the ’20s, it has made a big impression in its short time on these shores. A welcome addition, it is thought to have come to NZ when its annual migration from the Australian mainland to Tasmania was lead astray by a storm. It is a beautiful bird with dark coat of black and brown and a fiery red underbelly - indicative of it’s deep powerful presence and burning passion for its new home.
Sat, 10 Oct 2009 7:47 am – Posted by Mandy | 2 Comments
Guest Blogger: Campaign Manager for the Saddleback, Emma Gilkison
Attention! Before you rush off to the polls to vote for the most charming bird in the world - the saddleback - I’d like to thank a few people who helped me put this campaign video together. Can we have a round of applause please for musos Dan Yeabsley & Sam Auger, illustrator Kieran Reinhart and video editor/cameraman Davey Boy! Nice one.
Thu, 08 Oct 2009 9:27 am – Posted by Mandy | 7 Comments
Guest Blogger: Campaign Manager for the Hihi, Emma Gilkinson
Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:23 pm – Posted by Mandy | 1 Comment
Guest Blogger: Campaign Manager for the Kokako, Mandy Herrick
Mon, 28 Sep 2009 3:22 pm – Posted by Mandy | 5 Comments
Guest Blogger: Co-campaign Manager for the Karearea, Alan Macdougall
No animal should to be anthropomorphised - but this is politics and I’m going to do it anyway: the falcon is a proud, fearless creature; as contemptuous of humans as it is casually brilliant at predation. The Karearea, or New Zealand Falcon, absolutely deserves to be this year’s Bird of the Year.
It is our only remaining endemic member of the raptor family, a group with an interesting but mostly unfortunate story in these islands. There is the enduring ornithological mystery of why the peregine falcon, the world’s most widespread bird of prey, is not found in New Zealand. Could the locals have been too tough? There was the now-extinct Haast’s eagle, the fearsomely large cousin of the Karearea, that would have been sufficiently large to carry off small children.
Did explorer Charles Douglas shoot the last two of these in a trip up the Landsborough in the 1870s, or did he merely shoot the last two of the also now-extinct, but slightly smaller, Eyles’ Harrier?
Mon, 28 Sep 2009 9:10 am – Posted by Mandy | 6 Comments
Guest Blogger: Campaign Manager for the Grey Warbler & Broadaster, Graeme Hill
The only reason that the Grey Warbler is not bird of the year, every year, is that this soldier of our conscience is not often seen… yet it is common.
How can this be?
Grey Warbler
It is tiny and it gets mistaken for dust, or a bumblebee, but hear its song!
The Grey Warbler song is imprinted on all of our memories, and is more of a national anthem than, well….. our national anthem.
For years the humble Grey Warbler has been ignored, marginalized and even persecuted. One year it was depicted in a Forest and Bird illustration for Bird Of The Year coming LAST! We must all say… never again, never again.
Grey Warbler FACTS.
Sun, 27 Sep 2009 2:20 pm – Posted by Mandy | 1 Comment
Guest Blogger, Campaign Manager for the Albatross, Mandy Herrick
Thu, 24 Sep 2009 2:05 pm – Posted by Mandy | No Comments
Guest Blogger: Alex Milne, Campaign Manager for the South Island Kokako
The South Island kokako deserves this title for its shear tenacity. Despite claims of extinction for the past 40+ years, it keeps popping up. Sightings are invariably chance encounters by hunters and trampers. Others hear resonating haunting calls that carry and linger.
Though organ song is seldom heard, it etches itself into the minds of those privileged enough to hear it. In the words of West Coast identity Charlie Douglas in 1892 “ The cry of the crow is indescribably mournful . The wail of the wind through a leafless forest is cheerful compared to it. Perhaps the whistling of the wind through the neck of an empty whisky bottle is the nearest approach to it, and is sadly suggestive of departed spirits. Few people are aware that the crow is a song bird as it is only in the depths of the forest they can be heard to perfection. Their notes are very few but are the sweetest and most mellow toned I have ever heard a bird produce.”