Mioweka (Banded Rail) Gets a Meal

Fishing, fishing.....

Nursery Web Spider

You have to love this lady. She is so very protective of her eggs that when I touch her she does not move away. There is a large egg ball aout one centimetre in diameter inside the web below her. She will stay there every day until the young leave the nest.

Spotless Crake Chicks in Our Wetland

We have an addition to our wetland population by two Spotless Crake chicks.

Wonderful to see them so small running about after the parents.
https://youtu.be/prcJzhMagc8

Love to see Pateke and Mioweka in our wetland

Our Trail camera caught these fellows. The Pateke are busy feeding and the Mioweka was spooked by Kotare.
Pateke https://youtu.be/xgI8tlHEmCo
Mioweka https://youtu.be/1d4iTkVruNk

Homegrown Cayenne Pepper

Melva's beautiful sun dried homegrown Cayenne Pepper

Bittern

So cool to see Matuku in our wetland last week. Caught on camera trap.

Spotless Crake in our Wetland

10:53am on the 27th April our trail camera caught this Spotless Crake in our wetland right by the boardwalk. Old Mill Ln, Ngunguru. Love these shy little guys.

And Another Coprosma in Our Wetland

This one has white to pale mauve fruit.

And Yet Another Prolific Coprosma.

This is the nicest, sweetest coprosma berries we have discovered.
It is right by our boardwalk at The Riverbank Homestay and B&B

Crazy as Coprosma fruiting.

This Coprosma at The Riverbank has gone overboard this season fruiting.

Our Spotless Crake Chicks

A week later and all seems good. So lovely to see them in our wetland.

Spotless Crake Families in our wetland

Exciting news. We have two Spotless Crake families in our wetland.

Piwak Tahi & Rua and their nest (Piwakawaka)

We had a lot of enjoyment as Piwak Tahi and Rua built their nest below our deck. It wa in an easily observed place. Through the hatching period and early chick raising both parents were sitting on the eggs and feeding the chicks until the male, Tahi  disappeared. Then it was all up to Rua. She really worked hard keeping the remaining chick Tama warm and fed. One night and not far from fledging Tama fell out of the nest. We found it alive and below the nest. Put it back and Rua carried on as if nothing had happened. Feeding, feeding and dodging the aggressive Tui. Tama was quite developed and sitting on the edge of the nest waiting for food. A friend managed some great photos. Sadly the next day we found Tama dead in the nest. It is such a hard life for small creatures.

Tama

Rua feeding Tama

Rua feeding Tama

Tahi sitting on eggs. The nest is mostly constructed of Alaskan Yellow Cedar shavings from my boat building

A worn out Rua

Beautiful Crane Fly

Found this fellow on the boatshed door.
We have not been able to name it yet even though we often see them.

It has been a great year for Clematis at our place

Mingimingi

I so wish I could post the beautiful sweet Mingimingi perfume along with the photo. It is all down our roadside.

Pineapple

Here is our first ever pineapple grown at The Riverbank. We now have Pineapple, Taro (Dalo), Banana, Tropical Apricot. Getting tropical in the North.

Fungi are Fun

Fungi come in a myriad of shapes, sizes, textures and colours.
This one is on our section by the bush on a twig.

Wood Ear Fungi

Wood Ear Fungi (Auricularia cornea) in the Hugh Crawford DOC Reserve, Ngunguru. I like the way I can see clouds and a blue sky on the shiny surface.

Spiders - True Artists

These lovely orb webs are just off our deck in the kanuka.

Spotless Crake - They are such shy pretty birds. Always in a hurry.

Early Morning Spider Web

Early Morning Spider Web - Love the colours.

Praying Mantis Eats Wasp

This South African Praying Mantis is eating a live imported wasp on our balcony. Not fond of either of these insects. The wasps destroy our Monarchs and the Praying Mantis eats everything including our native Praying Mantis.

Hugh Crawford Reserve Kiwi

Every Saturday we visit our camera at this burrow and almost every week Kiwi makes our day with a visit..

This time kiwi enters the burrow, exits then does a bit of preening before going off foraging for grubs.

or visit https://youtu.be/ZOTQg_TFYs4

Australasian Bittern

We had a lovely long visit from the Bittern on the 5th March. This video was recorded by trail camera off our boardwalk.
https://youtu.be/Ph2nrcTa4MM

Never Ending Happenings at The Riverbank

Here we have an avalanche of Pukeko into the wetland pond.

And what is this rat doing! Fortyseven trips across the pond in three and a quarter hours carrying dry pampas for nest building, I assume.

 

These Banded Rail Chicks are old enough to fend for themselves.

It's a Good Year For Banana

Here are two of our seven bunches. Looking great. Cut a large one today.

 

Taro From Our Garden

Taro From Our Garden.
Rel nice and tender to eat. At last we don't have to go to Nasasobu to get good Dalo.

Every live thing gets its photo taken

Here we have a Solver Orb Web Spider. It was making its home by the wall of the house before being removed to the bush where it should be. Quite lovely.