The deep, dark eyes of the South Island robin/kakaruwai (Petroica australis) seem to drink in everything around them. They’re such curious things, always wanting to know what you’re doing in the bush. In summer time, during the breeding season, male and female work cooperatively in looking after the eggs and offspring. The male brings the [...]
Places
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 photo of a boat moored in the Mapua channel was taken from the jetty, looking across the end of Rabbit Island towards Nelson.
This is my favourite tūī (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae novaeseelandiae) shot from 2018. He looks like he’s spent a lot of time slicking his hair back into a pompadour that’s kind of fallen flat. Tūī are nectar and seed eaters and so are important in the propagation of many New Zealand native plants.
This little penguin/kororā isn’t shy, it’s sleeping, and I’m taking a clue from this little blue in that I’ll be taking a break from posting for a couple of weeks. Until then, here’s a little bit about little blues: We call them “little blue penguins” for the colours of their dorsal feathers, although some can [...]
New Zealand’s smallest bird, the rifleman/tītipounamu (Acanthisitta chloris), feeds exclusively on insects. They browse native forests, going up and down trees, systematically hunting down their tiny prey. This rifleman on the track to Mt Arthur Hut has taken an interest in what’s inhabiting the mosses and lichens on the underside of a branch (probably a [...]
This is a black swan/kakīānau (Cygnusatratus) with cygnet. The black swan has a rather confusing history in New Zealand. Black swans are widespread in Southeast Asia and Australia, and were introduced to New Zealand in the 1860s. In 1889, bones of a “New Zealand swan” were discovered in a cave in the Christchurch suburb of [...]
Skylark or pipit,it can be hard to tell. They’re both streaky brown birds, roughly the same size, who like hanging out in the same habitats. Pipits are more strongly striped, and the dark stripe through the eye generally distinguishes it fromthe skylark. But how do you tell unless you have them side by side? I [...]
Wingspan-wise, the Caspian tern/taranui (Hydroprogne caspia) is around the same size as the black-backed gull. The Caspian tern is not only New Zealand’s largest tern species, it is also the world’s largest tern species. The black cap and black legs are typical of adults, although the black cap will fade to grey outside of the [...]
