Today - Saturday May 4th

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Dolphin Place, Tutukaka

A tight blue balloon stretched over the sky with a few cloud pictures on it. It was a stunning day.
We walked up to the trig on the William Parata Wellington Memorial Reserve off Dolphin Place.
This site has the best coastal view  in the area. On a clear day one can see from Cape Rodney to Cape Brett, Great Barrier Is, Mokohinau Islands, The Poor Knight Islands, Maro Tiri Islands, Taranga and Hauturu. Pretty amazing.

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Ngunguru Bay 

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Ngunguru Sandspit and Estuary

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Taranga

William Parata Wellington Reserve - The Poor Knigt Islands

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Rauhomaumau Bay

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Tutukaka

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Tutukaka Marina

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Mokohinau Islands and Hauturu

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Rauhomaumau Bay

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Pataua

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Ngunguru Hills

William Parata Wellington Reserve - tutukaka

William Parata Wellington Reserve - Maro Tiri and Taranga

Crazy Nature - Love it

We keep finding these wonderful things at Ratty's Landing

Veined Slug above on a banana leaf. It looks like a leaf. 

The rest are two fungi that are on a small totara log. We don't know what their names are.

ngs at Ratty's Landing.

A May Morning

It was a sunny May Sunday Morning as we checked out some of the nature around the Riverbank this morning.
Black Shag, White Faced Heron, fungi and Spiders had us marveling.
Black shag and Heron were roosting in the early morning sun at the top of the dead pines. These pines get the first sun in our valley.
The last two photos show a spider web under construction. 33 minutes later it had added another 30 rings. Amazing!
The Fungi, well, unusual and a new one for us.

Diamonds From The Fairies In The Purple Sage

Fairies have magic. After some dull gays the Fairies thought to brighten our morning by placing a diamond in the centre of each Purple Sage shoot. Beautiful!

Ruckus at the neighbours in the night

On Tuesday night at about 9:00pm there was a huge ruckus next door at a male and female Kiwi started calling together. They did so again at about 9:30pm. They were only about 100m from our house and 20 from our neighbours.
It seems that Col the Kiwi has returned to the hole as there is much fresh digging. I have taken the camera back to see if we can catch it.

Alseuosmia Banksii (Toropapa) in Flower!

I took a stroll through the Hugh Crawford Reserve from the end of our boardwalk today. There is a forest of Toropapa but the surprise today is that some are flowering again and as usual the scent is fantastic. It seems that it can flower any time. of the year. I collected a handful of Toropapa berries also from the shrubs that flowered earlier and will have a crack at growing some. I think it is my favourite plant.

Return to The Ngunguru River

Sunday January 31st. This time Millan Ruka, his wife, Shirl and myself traveled from Clements Quarry all the way to Coalhill Ln. Mode of travel was mostly by Millan's inflatable waka,  by paddling, carrying, dragging and lowering the waka over rapids and waterfalls. It was a grand day out. It was a huge 11.5 hour day, 14 kilometre day on the river, our river.
There was only one mishap where I fell then slithered or washed down a chute of cascading water. Got a bit injured but not too bad. The chute is on the right in the photo.




On our last adventure down the river we viewed this huge columnar basalt boulder.




This time we found several more areas with basalt columns and this boulder above.

A Morning Meeting

On the 16^th April Dayna, an enthusiastic 13 year old birder and nature lover, arrived at the Matata Boardwalk in Old Mill Lane, Ngunguru early in the morning with her mother Wendy to observe Fernbirds.

The boardwalk crosses this estuarine wetland giving access to the Hugh Crawford bush reserve as well as providing an excellent viewing platform for the wetland birds.

It was a grey, windy morning and the birds seemed reluctant to show although we could hear them in many places over the wetland. Dayna’s camera, always poised for the shot but it did not happen. Some scampered in the rushes and also up into the saltmarsh ribbonwood for a look at us but not venturing into the open. We then moved to another site bordering the wetland where I had often seen the Fernbirds. This time they performed well and Dayna managed some great shots of an adult bird. We also observed a juvenile, so young it had not yet grown a tail and I managed to get a blurry shot. There was much calling, tisking and beak clicking. This was the first time Dayna had seen a Fernbird. Very exciting. It is encouraging to see younger folk so enthusiastic about and amongst our nature.

 

Piwak

We love our little fantails.

Day one for Piwak. This is it's first compost bin visit ever. This video is in slow motion. Maybe Melva is going to have a new garden and bin friend. It just hasn't been the same in the garden since Piwakawaka passed away last October after 6 years feeding at the bin. The garden has been quiet without its chatter.

Cicada

Unusual.A golden Cicada. This specimen is alive. Could it be infected with the parasitic fungi (Cordyceps Robertsii)

Sonya's Girls

On Saturday we moved bees from one of our hives into Sonya's new Flow Hive. We started by moving our hive to one side and placed the flow hive on exactly the same footprint our hive occupied. We then transferred the frames one at a time from our brood boxes to Sonya's brood boxes and then put her hive back together.
The bees immediately settled in and even the returning foraging bees went straight in. We could see through the side window that in no time at all some were exploring the new Flow frames.
All good and exciting. The exchange went very well.
Sonya's girls will live at our place and she will manage them here.
We are  all interested in how well this new Flow Hive System will work. It could be the future thing for amateurs who only have a few hives.

Matata - Fernbirds at The Riverbank Wetland

Yesterday evening and early this morning we went down to the boardwalk to observe fernbirds with our guests Peter and Meri. They were all over the place. Their calls are our dawn chorus there are so many of them. This movie only gives an idea of their behaviour. It was taken with a cell phone. If you have never seen a fernbird this is the place to be.

The Banded Rail Chick is growing.

The Banded Rail Chick is growing.

Waxeyes and Rails

Today Melva caught two Waxeyes preening in a Towai. We have not seen this before.
There is always a surprise at The Riverbank.

Our trail camera also caught the Banded Rail family in our wetland.