It’s always nice when you’re in the bush and a South Island robin (Petroica australis) shows up to check you out. They watch closely, looking to see if your footsteps throw up some interesting food.
Nelson Lakes National Park
A view across Lake Rotoiti on a summer day. Rotoiti is one of two large lakes in the Nelson Lakes National Park. Rotoroa, which means “long lake”, is the larger and deeper of the two lakes. Rotoiti means “small lake”. Both lakes are home to introduced trout.
This clear blue beauty is Lake Rotoiti, in the Nelson Lakes National Park. Lake Rotoiti was carved out by a glacier that has long since disappeared. This photo was taken from the Lakeside track that runs along the lake’s western side.
Whisky Falls lies just off the Lakeside track that goes up the western side of Lake Rotoiti, in the Nelson Lakes National Park. Whisky Falls is 40 metres high and in the 1880s, legend has it, was the site of a whisky still.
Lake Rotoiti in the Nelson Lakes National Park is fed by the Travers River, which runs through beech forest and tussock land. At the top of the lake not far from the river mouth, two huts flank either side of the point where the river enters the lake. This one is on the eastern side [...]
The Lakeside Track at Lake Rotoiti goes along the western side of the lake to a hut at the point where the Travers River enters the lake. The forest is beech forest with an understorey of ferns and mosses. This is also sandfly country: repellent definitely required!
On one hand, you have New Zealand’s most common coastal gull, the red-billed gull. On the other hand, you have this guy, the black-billed gull (Larus bulleri), which is not just New Zealand’s most threatened gull species, but the world’s most threatened. Their numbers are still okay, but the rate of decline is a serious [...]
This is Alphonso and he was a lone Mandarin duck (Aix galericulata) who turned up at Lake Rotoiti in the Nelson Lakes National Park in the spring of 2014, origins unknown. Mandarin ducks aren’t native to New Zealand, there isn’t an introduced population and it’s unlikely he found his way from somewhere-not-New-Zealand to Rotoiti under [...]
The eye stripe on this duck is an indication of grey duck (Anas superciliosa) heritage, but the iridescent speculum on the wing is blue, a mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos) trait. So is it a grey duck or a mallard? It’s impossible to tell by plumage as mallard characteristics are dominant, meaning you can have a [...]
Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) drakes in other countries tend to have more vivid colours, the ones we see in New Zealand are a bit toned done due to the pervasive interbreeding with the native grey ducks (Anas superciliosa).
