A Visit from Ruru: owl inspiration

Ruru in my garden

A few weeks ago I heard a commotion in the garden - the blackbirds were complaining, it sounded like they were giving another bird a good telling off. I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. That's when I saw a ruru sitting on a branch having its daytime nap. The owl didn't seem at all bothered by the blackbirds and eventually they gave up and moved into another part of the garden. 

I've heard ruru or morepork at night - their distinctive call echoes in the gully nearby - but I never imagined they might be hunting in our garden. These owls hunt wētā, moths, cicadas, small birds such as silver eyes, rats and mice. They need large trees with holes or cavities for their nests. We have some large trees but I don't know if any would be large enough for them to nest in.

There's something about their large eyes and piercing stare that is slightly unnerving, even when they are sleepy like this one. Meeting this ruru inspired me to write a little haiku.

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Reef heron from 2019

Reef Heron

The smooth grey rock

on the jagged shore

lifts up

separates from the shadows

two legs stalk

head darts

beak breaks the mirror

surface of the pool 

reef heron snaps and swallows

becomes rock again.

Yesterday I was down at Pukerua Bay beach, the water was glassy blue and the rocks dark shadows. I watched as a rock changed shape, became a reef heron, snapped some food and settled back again into it's rock-like posture. I'm having fun writing nature poetry!

Making Papier Mache Animals

 The wonderful papier mache tūī that accompanied me to the Imagine This! Festival at Porirua Library, was a huge hit with kids and parents. They were fascinated about how little it weighed and how life-like it looked. This lovely tūī was made by Meredith Thorpe, a Nelson-based artist. Parents and children asked me how to make a papier mache animal.

Meredith's Tūī

Making Native Bird Pop-up Cards - an activity for kiwi kids

Making native bird pop-up cards was a huge hit at Whitby Library last week. I've been taking part of the Porirua Library "Imagine This!" summer festival for children and this was the second workshop I ran. 

Nature pop-up cards are a great way to re-use greeting cards, scraps of paper, used Christmas or birthday wrapping paper, and images from old calendars and magazines. This activity worked well with age 6 and up.

How to make the Kiwi Pop-Up

Create a Nest or Habitat Diorama - craft for kids

Create A Diorama

Your challenge is to create a diorama of a habitat which includes clues about the animal that lives there. Keep your animal secret and then get your family and friends or classmates to guess Whose Home is This?

Diorama of a kea habitat

First here are some ideas about using clues to guess an animal that lives in a particular habitat, from my book Whose Home is This?

Discovering Birds' Nests - blown down in the wind

Nests feature in my children's book 'Whose Home is This?' illustrated by Fraser Williamson, which I'm excited to say is a finalist in the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2019.

Half of the homes in the book belong to birds

I'm fascinated by how animals make their homes. In the spring I quietly observe the birds in my garden to see where they might be building their nests. In autumn and winter after a stormy night, I look in the garden or when I'm out on a bush walk to see if a bird's nest has been blown down by the wind. Garden or bush birds need only make their nests strong enough to last a month or two, just long enough for their chicks to grow big enough. For each new brood of chicks, they'll build a new nest. So the old nests eventually fall apart or get blown out of the tree.

'Birdstories' Uncovering the Secrets of New Zealand Birds

Birdstories is my new go-to book! When I was pondering which shelf to put it on - next to the field guides or among the nature prose, it occurred to me that since this book won’t be staying on the shelf for long, it might as well stay on my table, given the number of times I’ll be referring back to it. 

Birdstories: a history of birds of New Zealand by Geoff Norman, published by Potton & Burton

Rich in information, Birdstories, takes one group of birds at a time - there’s a chapter on kiwi, one on eagles and falcons, another on cuckoos and so on.  Each chapter discusses the history of the bird(s) in question - both in terms of ancestry but also human interaction. You'll find answers here on how it got its scientific name, whether it appears in whaktaukī, in some cases what aided its extinction, in others how it's hanging on to survive.

My Nature Journal - Best of 2018

Summer 2018

Tūī chick in my garden

One of the most memorable experiences last summer was getting up close to a tūī chick in the garden and watching the brood flourish. I wrote about it in my most popular blogposts: Tūī Takeover. Our tūī provide a source of both interest and entertainment all year round. And...

A Coastal Walk - animals that I see in Pukerua Bay

After writing about the plants of my coastal pathway in my last blogpost, Cyclone Gita blew in. Extraordinarily high seas washed away much of the pathway and deposited massive piles of driftwood on what was left. Plants on the sea side of the path have mostly died, but not all.  I hope they are resilient.

Driftwood covers the path

Taking this path, very occasionally right around to Plimmerton, but usually to the Pukerua Bay Scientific Reserve and back, I've had the privilege of seeing many different animals, some unexpected.

Fur seals make occasional appearances along the coast

It's only recently that I've attempted to photograph them. More often than not I only have my phone camera handy. Photos are a good way to convey an animals features or behaviour to others. We get instant recognition, responding with an "Ah yes that's what I saw on my beach" or "how amazing who knew gulls would do that?"

Tūī Takeover - tūī chicks growing up in the garden

I always enjoy spending the quiet of the Christmas - New Year break in Pukerua Bay. People leave the cities and suburbs for holiday spots, leaving us to enjoy a laid back week or so in our little suburban village. The bonus this year has been settled warm weather so I'm spending more time relaxing in our wild garden. On Christmas Eve while pottering around in the garden, I was startled by loud, insistent cheeping. Looking for the source, I found myself face to face with a tūī fledgling.

Tūī fledgling

The fledgling hopped around from plant to plant, making an occasional fluttering attempt, but as its wings weren't really developed it fluttered lower and lower until it was on the ground. I thought it wouldn't live through the night -  last year we lost two tūī chicks to neighbours' cats - but Cheepy (as she/he soon came to be called) was still there the next day and the next.

Getting Past the 'ick' Factor: for a Predator Free New Zealand

There's a momentum building across the country, as community after community sets up 'Predator Free' or 'Pest Free' groups. Last November, Predator Free Pukerua Bay kicked off with a well attended meeting in the local hall.  We weren't starting from scratch as in the Pukerua Bay scientific Reserve volunteers were trapping for weasels, stoats, and rats, and around the reserves Greater Wellington Regional Council has bait stations. Also a few locals were already trapping on their sections. But this was just a drop in the ocean compared to what we could do together as a community.

Why we trap - to protect our native wildlife

What Bird is That? identifying native forest birds

Forest Birds ID card from "In the Bush" - now free to download

Interested in New Zealand's native birds and want to be able to identify them? Ten or so years ago I'd be out in the forest not sure what I was hearing or seeing. Here's some of the steps that I took to improving my knowledge of New Zealand birds.

Set yourself a bird-watching challenge: for example, take part in the New Zealand Garden Bird Survey on this week from 24 June to 2 July.  Gardens are a good place to start because often birds are easier to see in a garden and you can learn bird-watching techniques (see tips below) that will help you when you are out in the forest, beach or wetland. The Top 10 birds in gardens in 2016 were:

Make a Kaka Mask - beaky fun

Kākā play a role in my book 'Whose Beak is This?' illustrated by Fraser Williamson. To celebrate its publication Fraser created a super kākā mask. Print it out on A3 paper to fit a child's face. See the instructions below.

These children added feathers to their masks
at Storylines in Dunedin in 2016

Endangered Reef Herons - reporting sightings

Described as Nationally Endangered, there are only 300-500 reef herons left in New Zealand. I'm lucky to live in of the few places that they visit. It's a privilege to be able to watch them down among the rock pools and in the shallows.

Reef Heron showing breeding plumes on its back

Scientists are interested in sightings of this bird and you can report these through iNaturalistNZ or Project Hot Spot (although the focus of the latter is Taranaki). Before you send in a report - here's how to tell the difference between the endangered reef heron and the common white-faced heron. Both are called matuku moana in Māori.

How do you tell the difference between a white-faced heron and a reef heron?

Birds at the Beach - vulnerable and at risk

Red-billed gulls - tarāpunga
Nationally Vulnerable

Solitary stalkers, noisy pairs or squawking flocks - we rather take our shore birds for granted. Gulls in particular seem to be ever present, squabbling over a dead fish on the beach or trying to steal our fish and chips. So it came as a surprise to realise that red-billed gulls (tarāpunga) are considered to be 'nationally vulnerable'. The second surprise was that of all the birds in the bush-clad seaside village of Pukerua Bay, the ones that are under threat are almost all shore birds rather than those that live in the bush.

Nature Highlights (New Zealand) - my best of 2016

2016 Nature Highlights

Visiting the Wildlife Capital of New Zealand - Dunedin

Dunedin lays claim to the title 'Wildlife Capital of New Zealand'. And while I'd like to think Wellington could compete for this title, I have to concede Dunedin has the edge on us. First, there's a concentration of rare native animals across a range of habitats, all within easy reach of the city.  And secondly, the ratio of people to wild animals is much lower here than in Auckland or Wellington. The landscape of hills and harbour dominate the tiny city. This gives Dunedin a sense of being all about the wildlife.

I started my early spring visit to the wildlife capital with a walk along remote Allan's Beach on the Otago Peninsula. At first it could have been any south facing beach in New Zealand on a spring day - a few human footprints in the wide expanse of sand, shrill oyster catchers, rocky headlands at either end. Then as we walked along, the large mounds in the sand came into focus, several pairs of New Zealand sea lions - mothers and pups were dotted along the beach slumbering in the spring sunshine.

New Zealand sea lion - whakahao

Northern Giant Petrel - Beach Rescue and Ocean Release

Some days you just don't know what you'll find at the beach.

One stormy Sunday afternoon, we were walking along and saw a couple of kids in the waves. 'Crazy kids' I thought since it is winter and, although the waves looked exciting, the kids looked cold. Then we realised that they were trying to rescue a large black bird that was being bashed about by the waves.

Return to Blue Lake - More Blue Ducks

Last month I returned to Blue Lake. I'd visited the lake a year ago and blogged about it in Trouble In Paradise after witnessing an attempted attack on an endangered blue duck or whio by a rat. I'd told my tramping companions about the blue ducks we'd sighted last time, so we had high expectations of seeing some beautiful whio again - and we were hoping not to have a repeat of the rat incident!

Mountains and clouds reflected in Blue Lake

Encounters with Toutouwai, the New Zealand Robin

Just how rare are Toutouwai - New Zealand Robins? Until last week I'd only ever seen South Island robins in the wild.  In remote and beautiful places like the Kahurangi National Park and the Waitutu forest, these robins hop trustingly up to trampers, they'd sit on my boot or scratch around on the path that I'd just walked along. But to see a North Island robin (yes they are a little different) I thought I'd have to take a trip to a sanctuary like Mana Island or Zealandia.

So I was blown away to discover these delightful birds living in the wilderness in Whanganui National Park.