Good recent weather has combined with some days off work, so I’ve been out a about a little bit. I went to the Otari-Wilton’s Bush and walked for three hours, having the tracks mostly too myself on a Tuesday morning. It was nice just walking in forest without people, and I got to see a few things which I might not otherwise have seen. Case in point was a morepork (ruru) quietly sitting in a tree fern adjacent to the path. I took far too many photos, here I will show but one:
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
There were also lots of tui, plenty of wood pigeon and I also saw a bellbird feeding on a big pohutukawa tree. There were also lots of little streams and attractive waterfalls, though given my recent bad luck with cameras and waterfalls I wasn’t trying too hard to get to the best views.
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
The 800 year old rimu was also quite impressive, many times larger that the surrounding trees.
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Last night I got an email saying that there would be a weta release at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, so I headed along to have a look. Over forty cook strait giant weta were being released after capture on Somes (Manu) Island overnight. There are a hundred or so marked giant weta on Somes Island, and during the search they only found one of these, so it does look like the island population is booming.
There was a crowd of fifty odd people gathered at the tui terrace for the release. The staff soon appeared on a box laden farm bike and were soon opening ice cream containers and showing the paired wetas within to the crowd. Once everyone had had a good look it was on to the release, the wetas picked up and set down under shrubs bordering the terrace. Mostly it was children touching the not so little invertebrates, one plucky youngster happy to have one crawl on his face so the Dominion Post photographer could get a good shot.
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
Photo by Brendon & Keryn
I still haven’t got anywhere with my replacement camera, the insurance people are still waiting for a quote apparently. I went to a Noel Leeming store on the way home from Karori and got a quote in about two minutes, so I think I’ll be chasing tomorrow morning.
Wow, that is a stunning shot of the morepork… I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in the wild, but then again I’ve never looked for them in daylight!
Well done indeed!
– Jack