Kiwiblog

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Back to the garden today, with the tauhou (silvereye).

Relatives of this species are found through Australia and Asia.

To remember all this week who have put their foot in “it”

It’s a Pied Stilt Heron from the Northern Territory of Australia.

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Fresh from the camera (no cropping or editing)

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(Just a note that my website host Zenfolio may be intermittent today because of maintenance)

I might add that while it’s enjoyable to have these birds living next to us, they can also make a spectacular mess on the car.

Today’s pic is of a local bird, the kereru.  This threatened species is also the largest extant pigeon in the world (and NZ”s only pigeon species)

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Enjoy your Friday.

Today’s pic is of one of our native crab spiders (Sidymella sp).  It’s unusual to see them in their hunting pose during the day.  I got around this problem by photographing it in local bush, at night.  The trick was actually seeing it. You can see from the scale it is just a few mm across.

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After the last few weeks of dealing with the elephants in the media, a changed of pace to the very minute was in order.

Taking a short break from annoying the odd NGO ahead of CITES, here’s a pic of one of our local predators

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Fwiw, this has had the magnification boosted to a high enough level that the shot hasn’t needed any cropping.

Todd seems to have enjoyed his day off on Wednesday, so I think we’re short a scenic photo of NZ this week.

So that’s the motivation for this alpenglow picture from the Hauraki Gulf  This effect is usually seen just before sunrise, where the light reflects off clouds or mountains.

“Red Glow” click for larger, higher res image

One of the best places to take photos of Siberian tigers (lao hu) is still…Siberia.

“On ice” (no, I can’t explain it)

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“Old Tiger”

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And there’s nothing quite like being out in -25 C temperatures to create a strong yearning to be back in NZ

One of the types of spiders that builds orbwebs, are not true orbweb spiders (Araneids). Their webs are often aligned horizontally rather than vertically. The spider also much larger jaws (chelicerae) than orbweb spiders. These spiders are the tetragnathids.

One of the most common of these spiders is the indigenous Leucauge dromedaria. This spider is native to both NZ and Australia, and I’ve been trying to get a photo I like of it for a while.  Conditions came together for this shot.  Purists may be interested to know that it is an “old school” photo, as the exposure was manually set, the flash was manually set and the focus was also manual.

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The link is to a much larger image.

I’m heading off into the ‘field’ on Saturday for 12 days, hence there will be no Friday photo next week.

Know your pests

In light of the last photo that looked sort of wasp-like (but was in fact a useful and harmless fly), I thought we could do a diversion into those insects that are pests.  This is the Asian Australian paper wasp.  You might also note its antenna are very different to the last little guy I posted.

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A reminder that summer is on the way.  One of the peculiarities of NZ is that a lot of plant pollination is undertaken by native flies.  We have relatively few native bee species.

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And today’s venture is back into the world of macro, but something diurnal. And not spider-like. Albeit still carnivorous…female too.

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One of the best signs it is late Spring around here.

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Then it’s back to the world of coffee and alligators…

Today we’re back in the NZ forests with our native birds:

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North Island Kaka

Back to the world of birds today

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A different kind of lurker- this is one of our largest tunnelweb spiders.  Typically these arachnids are nocturnal and do not venture far from native bush.Hence this pic is taken at night.  This particular species Hexatheles hochstetteri is one of our heaviest spiders, and was also one of the first to be described (scientifically) in the 1800s.

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While in general, they’re nocturnal and cryptic, occasionally one will wander into someone’s house.

One from my favourite continent.  Going for a low angle helps capture the reflection in the water. It also ensures the crocodile will keep a very watchful eye on you.

As always, clicking the image will bring up a larger, higher res image.

“Sleepy”

A male papango (native NZ scaup). Click for larger, higher res image

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A Southern Bell Frog contemplating an early start to the day.

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Sticking with the arachnid theme, here’s a nice profile shot of one of our more endearing native jumping spiders Trite planiceps.

The distinctive traits of these spiders are their very large eyes (they’re primarily a visual hunter) and their powerful front legs with spikes.

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This is a common native spider, and its brown, furry appearance does prompt my daughter to regard it as ‘cuddly’. It’s our native Nursery-Web spider. In this shot the arachnid has emerged from hiding to position herself by the nursery at night. So this is a nocturnal picture (late summer). These spiders are still about. They’re common in the bush areas around our house, and one was even sunning itself on the bricks by our garage this morning.

Mum

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One from ‘across the ditch’.

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…and finally, some sunshine in Auckland.  Blue skies, coffee and sunshine is a fine way to begin the end of the week

Two pics today because they really belong as a paired set.  They’re of the NZ scaup or papango, one of our smallest duck species and a very adept diver.  The male is darker, and both sexes have a distinct yellow eye.

As always, clicking the image will bring up the larger, higher resolution pic.

Feeling like trying something calmer today

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Back to Muriwai – the Australasian gannet (or Takapu)

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