Tasman Every Day

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.

This is the New Zealand pipit/ pīhoihoi (Anthus novaeseelandiae), which is a bit smaller than a song thrush, about 16-19 cm long compared to the thrush’s 20-24 cm. Pipits belong to a family of birds called wagtails, because they kind of wag their tails as they walk. Numbers in New Zealand are over 100,000 but they seem to be declining. Pipits prefer being out in the open and are found from coasts up to alpine areas. They can be confused with the introduced skylark, which also prefers open habitats. Pipits are more strongly striped, and the dark stripe through the eye generally distinguishes it from the skylark.

Most of the common names for Zosterops lateralis are based on its most striking feature: the rings around the eyes of the adults. Silvereye, wax-eye, white-eye. Even its genus name, Zosterops, refers to the eye ring: it means “eye girdle”. Looking beyond the bright eye ring, though, the silvereye has an astonishing array of striking colours, from the intensity of the yellow-green feathers on its head and back to the depth of colour in its blue-grey cape, its pale grey breast and the rusty-peach coloured sides. This silvereye is sitting on a bottlebrush (Callistemon) bush.

This is a juvenile pied stilt/poaka (Himantopus himantopus leucocephalus). The black neck and back of the head of the adult develops as the bird matures, but the soft colours of the juvenile are rather endearing, in a sleeping-without-taking-your-mascara-off kind of way.

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.

The white-fronted tern/tara (Sterna striata) is often seen in large flocks along the New Zealand coastline. Their relationship with fish is complicated: the white-fronted tern is also known as the kahawai bird, from its habit of flocking over shoals of kawahai. It’s not the kahawai, they’re interested in, though, because terns are after the smaller fish that are found along with kahawai. The name “white-fronted” refers to the white stripe that separates its black cap from its bill. Otherwise, the bird is a soft grey on top with white undersides. The Latin name, Sterna striata, refers to… nothing at all to do with the adult bird. Juvenile white-fronted terns have broken speckle-stripes on their backs, and it is this striation that lent itself to the tern’s species name.

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 of the lake, Lakehead Hut. It lies on the Lakehead track, which runs along the shore of the lake towards Kerry Bay and St Arnaud.

Poaka/pied stilts (Himantopus himantopus) are found in warmer parts of the world and are called black-winged stilts outside of New Zealand. The New Zealand subspecies first established populations here in the 1880s; it is also found throughout Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. They seem to like it here and cope okay with our introduced predators, unlike the critically endangered black stilts, which only breed along braided river beds in the South Island and are intensively managed by the Department of Conservation. In fact, pied stilts have displaced black stilts to some extent and the two species do interbreed, threatening the black stilt’s survival even more.

This is the view of the hills looking towards Richmond from one of the many bays that lie between Mapua and Richmond. The peaky peak in the distance is Mt Richmond and it’s quite striking, as are the jagged bits of mountain to the left of it. They’re visible on the skyline driving southeast from Motueka but disappear behind the Richmond ranges by the time you reach Richmond.