Kaniere Canaries

In this, the last post from Lake Kaniere, I wanted to share with you a few of the lovely bird shots I took. Our birds might not sing like canaries but they all have their own special tunes.

Of course my favourite little bird is first. This tiny adorable male South Island Tomtit (Maori name Miromiro) was full of spunk, he wasn’t afraid to let you know you were intruding in his patch. Just because he’d chosen part of the DOC campground as his territory didn’t mean he was going to vacate it when it became overrun with campers, dogs, cars, boats & caravans. He just had more things to hang from or use as vantage points in his hunt for bugs and intruders. Often I saw him sitting on the very top point of a gazebo or tent, on boat rod holders, camp tables and even the satellite dish on a bus.

I’d hear his sweet little song as he rested in the bush near our van and then his high pitched alarm call rang out when I stepped outside- this was good because I could then get a fix on him and follow him from spot to spot as he flew the circuit of his territory. He caught a number of caterpillars in this tree, bashing them on a branch to soften them up before swallowing them whole.

He kept up the attack on his reflection in any car mirror or shiny window as he had done on the day we arrived. Every day he would spend five minutes or so flapping at the reflection before giving up and moving on. Until his next circuit.

It must be a thing with Tomtits because you might remember we first saw it happen when a female Tomtit attacked the ute mirror when we were driving up the Arrow River to Macetown.

After all the rain we had, you would have thought that a tiny little bird would have had enough of water. Not this little guy, he had a ball (bath) in this muddy puddle for at least 5 minutes.

And here is his mate- well actually it’s not, but it is a female South Island Tomtit, they are much less confiding than their male counterparts. This one was very cautious and even though she came in close she made sure she always had a branch between me and her.

The camp was full of Bellbirds/Korimako feeding on the berries of the many sub-alpine trees that grew around camp. Usually the bellbird has a very melodious song but going by the weird squawking we quite often heard, the juveniles have a lot of trouble learning to sing in tune. They do practice alot though which helps me locate them in the thick branches. This juvenile wasn’t too worried about me standing underneath him, I think he was glad of the audience. In between trying to perfect his singing ability he was filling his belly with mingimingi berries.

There were also a number of large Mahoe (aka Whiteywood) bushes, they were usually full of noise as the Bellbirds, Tuis, Silvereyes, along with a few introduced bird such as Blackbirds had a feast feeding on the plentiful supply of small purple berries.

There were about ten weka around camp- although two died while we were there- we’re not too sure how, they could have been ill or it could have been one of the 15 or so dogs that were in camp over Easter. Once again the sign said ‘no dogs allowed’ and once again nobody took a blind bit of notice.

I know a lot of people think weka are pesky buggers (and they are) but I’m quite fond of them; they have a heap of character to go with their inquisitive nature. A solid beak (that they often poke where it’s not wanted) and strong legs (to carry them off faster than the shoe that whistles past their head).

One day after Easter and after the camp ground had cleared out, I happened to look out the back window and there down near the bottom of the road was a small black ball of fluff snuffling about on the grass verge. I couldn’t believe my eyes, surely not, not another possum out in daylight (you’ll remember we saw a possum on our walk at Cave Creek).

I grabbed my camera and crept down the edge hiding behind some rocks on the way. He didn’t move until I got within a couple of metres of him, when he got a bit of a fright and stumbled off into the undergrowth. He then tried to climb up the flax. Of course that didn’t work, he just shredded the leaves with his massive claws and slid back to the bottom where he just sat there staring at me.

I left him alone thinking he must be ill and would probably die in the next day or two. Especially after the torrential rain we had for the next two days, but no, the next day at about the same time I saw him out on the verge again. Then he slowly made his way up the road casually grazing along the way. He spent alot of time stripping the leaves off a large dock plant before moving on and then making his way down another path.

On the third day, he was starting to look like a drowned rat and he had lost the little bit of fear he had, not even bothering to stop eating as we approached. I gave David a piece of banana to feed him and he scoffed it, checking around for more as soon as it was gone. Ok, Ok, I know, don’t shout at me. But how could I not feel sorry for this cute little fellow even though I know he is one of the most destructive imported pests in New Zealand.

By the fourth day, he was following me up the road. And not stopping when I got down low to take a photo! Perhaps he had been someone’s pet? Although I think unlikely, his ears had a few war wounds so maybe he was just old and being nocturnal, his eyesight would have been impaired by the light.

We were leaving on the fifth day so I checked around by the flax bush where he had appeared each afternoon to see if I could see where he was asleep. I felt rather sad for him, he was curled up in a ball at the base of the flax, out in the open with the rain falling on him. He hadn’t even tucked himself in under the bush in the dark. At first I thought he was dead but he stirred when he heard me and then went back to sleep. So maybe he was sick……or it was too early to get up. We certainly don’t get bored on this journey, there’s always something unusual happening around us.

There are a number of short walks around the lake including the Canoe Cove Rimu Forest Walk which ended on a small beach with a sheltered cove tucked around the corner.

It was a thrill to find quite a number of Sky-Blue Mushrooms or Blue Pinkgill (Entoloma hochstetteri) alongside the track. While not rare they are more frequently found in the Coromandel (North Island) and West Coast (South Island) areas of New Zealand. A blue mushroom is quite rare in the world though, New Zealand, and of all places, India are the only countries that have this bright blue fungi.

With a conical shape it does look like something out of a fairy tale and the lush green backdrop of the moss simply adds to the expectation that a fairy or elf is about to emerge from behind one.

And while hunting for more Sky-Blues we found other fungi, not in such a brilliant colour though but interesting all the same. In the bottom left is the birds nest fungus- a tiny fungi no bigger than my little fingernail, the small brown dots are the spores(‘pills’) that have been splashed out of the ‘nest’ by rain once the top has fallen free. The white helmet fungus on the top right is also very small, & delicate. I have no idea about the weird coral looking fungus in the top left and in the bottom right the fungi were whiter than white, almost opaque.

Another short walk was the Kahikatea Forest Walk through virgin kahikatea forest. Kahikatea like having wet feet so some of the track is along a boardwalk over swampy land. Once the track leaves the boardwalk and moves deeper into the dark and damp forest, the trees are literally dripping in moss.

Towards the end the forest opens up again and we can see why, once again we see the destruction that has been caused by Cyclone Ita. Rather than the Beech trees we’ve seen elsewhere, it’s huge rimu trees that have been ripped out of the ground here. Back at the carpark we talk to a guy who is working at preparing the rimu to be lifted out by helicopter- it’s taken a year for consent to be granted to remove this valuable wood from conservation land and if they don’t start lifting it out soon it will spoil. He heads off into the bush with his chainsaw and we can hear another one off in the distance.

And a few days later and the night before we were due to leave, DOC arrived with a van load of road cones to block off our area of the camp. An Iroquois helicopter was going to start lifting out the logs the next day and it was going to be landing at the camp to refuel. As we were due to leave anyway, we stayed in our spot overnight and moved the cones into place the next morning for them.

We might have been tempted to shift the van over to another site and stay and watch but the weather was still not that great; David had to pack the boat up in the pouring rain. We decided it was time to move on. We both loved Lake Kaniere, is was one of the prettiest lakes we’ve visited, it was just a pity the weather wasn’t a little better given the two weeks we spent there.

A Quiet & Sunny Easter- Part 1

Famous last words…

Before I catch up-to-date on the blogs from the last week or so I wanted to tell you about our Easter. It’s a two part blog but I won’t keep you waiting tool long for the second installment.

Our visit started off well enough, we arrived at the DOC camp at Lake Kaniere on Tuesday well in advance of any campers coming to stay for the Easter holiday weekend. There's no camping allowed along the foreshore but there's plenty of views from up the back.

We had the place to ourselves the first night, we found an ideal area to set up camp; on the top level overlooking a section of the lake and a picturesque island just off shore. It’s a large camp site with multiple grassed levels with large bushes dividing up the various sections.

The lake is stunning, not a breath of wind to cause a ripple anywhere.

Just a few resident ducks including this female Paradise duck with her mate- they swim away the morning and then waddle up to the top level to graze on the grass and sunbath on the rocks near our van.

A male South Island Tomtit (Miromiro) calls our level and the level below his territory. He spends most of his time fighting his reflection in the car mirror. He does laps of his patch, around and around he flies, from tree to rock to picnic table to mirror to van to another tree and back to the mirror. I think he hopes that intruder will be gone by the time he gets back. Poor boy, another car pulls in and straight away he’s fighting that reflection too. His breast is a beautiful golden colour, he’s getting ready for the breeding season when it’ll turn even more golden. North Island tomtits have white breasts.

Then there are the usual suspects, about half a dozen weka, they wander about scavenging for scraps and calling loudly before scurrying off under the bushes chasing each other.

We do a bit of exploring on Wednesday and David inflates the dinghy later in the afternoon. He’s off fishing Thursday morning…

And catches his first perch which is released after he’s taken a photo. There are also salmon in the lake along with brown & rainbow trout. He has a couple of strikes but isn’t able to land any. He tells me that the lake is very dark, an inky blackness from the tannin stained water and it’s also very deep. Up near the top of the lake it’s also very pretty with flax and reeds reflecting in the still water.

On Friday we go exploring in the boat, right to the top where the reflections are. David trolls along the edges and I relax (as much as you can in a 3.5 metre dinghy).

We pass a bus freedom camping on the lake’s edge, they have an inflatable ready to go too. A little further on we see a person sitting on a large wooden seat & another skimming stones across the smooth water. I know there’s a lodge somewhere up near the top of the lake and wonder if they are from there. We later discover that there’s a short walkway down to the beach from the carpark at Dorothy Falls.

We stop on a beach to have lunch but can’t find a suitable log or rock to sit on and the pesky sandflies are annoying us again so we climb back into the boat and sit on the seats to eat lunch, floating just off shore in the peace and solitude…..until a fizz boat roars by. The sandflies still find us but don’t swarm as much as they do onshore. After lunch we move further down the lake and tie up to a fallen log. Directly behind the bush that fringes the lake is the beautiful Lake Kaniere Walkway (and mountain biking track); a 3.5hr 11km walk that follows the lake edge from top to bottom.

The cloud is closing in on the lake by the time we make our way back to the boat ramp and we can see a lot of activity along the foreshore.

There are now three caravans and their associated gazebos, BBQs and tables set up behind us and the level below us is also filling up fast…..

Ok, well it is Easter after all and this is the last chance many will have of going camping this summer. But it does seem rather busy all the same…..

To be continued……

Blowhard Bush & a Tomtit

As you'll have noticed on the map out the right hand side, we've now moved on to Mangaweka. I still have a couple more blogs from Kuripapango to post though.


Blowhard Bush- so named because in early coaching days the horses struggled to cross the inland ranges of Hawkes Bay- is a 63 hectare reserve just off the Napier-Taihape Road and was given by a local family, Mr & Mrs Lowry, to the NZ Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society back in 1962.

The forest grows over limestone formations which has produced many karst ridges in amongst the trees- it reminds me of the weird karst formations we saw on the Takaka Hill. The limestone has been fractured into large blocks by the surrounding active fault lines and is covered with layers of pumice ash from central North Island eruptions thousands of years ago. It is thought that this area of bush was saved from becoming a commercial pine forest because of the limestone rocks, tomos (underground holes) and caves that cover the reserve.

We decide to walk the Tui Track, the main & longest track in the reserve and one that does a circuit of the reserve taking in a number of interesting features along the way. It had been raining the day before and the morning of our walk so it was very wet under foot and with a number of steep sections, we slipped and slid as we struggled up the slopes. Grabbing trees to halt your slide gave you a free cold shower as the branches overhead were laden with water.

Some of the rock fractures we passed through were quite narrow and generally the track wasn’t that wide compared with the DOC walks we’ve been on but all the tracks were very well marked with coloured tags at regular intervals leading the way and plenty of information panels at relevant spots.

This is Patiki Cave (like the sign says) but it’s more of a large low limestone rock overhang. This was where Patiki, a Maori man lived with his family here back in the 1800s. Patiki fell in love with a woman well above his social standing, they eloped and hid here for many years surviving and raising two children, who went on to work at the Kuripapango Hotel taking on the English names of Jock & Mary McDonald. (The wooden box under the sign is a weta hotel- more on them further down)

At the top of the walk is the Lowry Shelter, obviously named after the benefactors of the reserve. We stopped outside to have our lunch and listen to the birds- it was a bit gloomy and barren inside but would have been great if it was raining with table & benches to sit at.

We hadn’t seen (or heard) much bird life on the walk through the bush but as we moved into the more open bush near the top of the track we caught glimpses of birds flying about and could hear a lot of bird song. As I stood there listening I caught sight of this little guy flying in for a better look at the intruder passing through her patch.

This is a tiny female fledgling Tomtit- Miromiro, which is probably the reason she was so confiding. She has yet to learn that the big wide world can have many dangers although Tomtits, especially the males, can be quite bold and inquisitive.

So cute! She posed for me long enough to at least grab a couple of good shots. Taking photos in the dark bush with bright backgrounds and tiny fast birds flitting all over the place deserves a medal!

After leaving the shelter we passed through a clearing and then out onto an alpine herbfield, following the sign posts to the lookout which looks west towards the Kaweka Ranges in the distance and with the commercial Kaweka Pine Forest spread out below.

Looking south west we can see the Napier-Taihape road (in the centre) weaving it’s way towards Kuripapango and the Gentle Annie on the far right.

David spies a Bellbird- Korimako, resting on a Kanuka branch, he doesn’t look too pleased to see us…

I move in for a closer shot, clicking as I step carefully forward but he spooks and takes off.

We head off through the kanuka forest and it’s all downhill from here on- very slippery downhill and tough going in some places.

At various places throughout the reserve weta boxes are attached to trees, these are hidey holes for wetas to call home, although none have taken up the option here. Maybe the rent is too high or there are too many nosey people looking in.

Near the end of the walk there’s a side track to a large cave. Passing through one of the narrow alleyways formed by the limestone I get the feeling I’m being watched by a dozen conjoined Easter Island faces.

It’s a steep slippery track down to the cave and all the way we’re thinking we’ve got to climb back out of here afterwards but we can’t come this far and not have a look. The cave is quite deep with a limestone ceiling with a split right down the centre. It’s dry & dusty inside and there’s no sign of life. I think Patiki would have been better making his home in here myself.

Once back at the car we decide to head to the summit lookout which is just a few kilometres back down the road towards Napier. It’s the closest cell phone connection we can access and where we’ve been a couple of times to phone family, upload emails and where I’ve been able to upload blog posts. This is the view we’ve had while doing our computer work, looking south east out over Hawkes Bay, this time as rain clouds pass over parched farms.

The Birds of Cascade Creek

I finally managed to  get some reasonably decent shots of the rifleman- titiponaumu at Cascade Creek. These tiny little birds with heaps of character are fast becoming my favourites. There were a number of family groups that lived on the bush edge beside our camp at Cascade Creek, along with tomtits- miromiro & bush robin- toutouwai, so I was able to spend a few hours on various days tracking them and understanding their habits. Whenever, by chance, two family groups met on their respective territory boundaries they would let their guard down to chase each other away. Too fast for me to catch on the camera but they made me laugh as they'd fly right past me just a few inches away where usually they'd give me a wide berth hiding under the branches or running up the opposite side of the trunk to where I was.

Each group, usually a male, female & one or two juveniles had quite a small territory and they worked it from end to end checking under and along branches and climbing tree trunks in search of food. Occasionally they would scout around on the ground all the while keeping in touch with each with a high pitched peep. It was this peep that alerted me to their presence and although quite hard to spot if I kept still long enough I’d catch a movement. It was then easier to follow them through the branches.

So here are some of my better captures (shutter speed & ISO noise still caused a few issues on a some but I’m getting there);

Down by the river at the far end of the camp was an area where quite a number of motorhomes parked each night. One had stopped early and the couple had gone for a walk. I was sitting at the BBQ table (fighting off the sandflies) and waiting for the rifleman to move to a large tree above me. Instead they flew down to the recently arrived van and, like the rifleman at Mavora Lakes, started checking it over for dead bugs. The female made me smile when I saw her stretching tall to grab bugs off the end of the mudguard.

And just like the Mavora birds she also flew over to the fire pit to check out the cold embers.

And then out flew a gorgeous little tomtit, flitting about catching insects on the wing. He sat on the tip of a rock and launched himself off it everytime he spotted another tasty morsel and then fly across the road to land on the roadside weeds. Back & forward he flew in the late afternoon sun catching dinner.

Next to make an appearance right beside me was a tui. It flew into a bush and then jumped out and onto the ground chasing what looked like a small piece of paper. He threw it in the air a couple of times and chased it across the ground grabbing it again before finally realising he was being watched and flew off. It still looked like a bit of paper but I wonder whether it may have been a butterfly wing or something. Very weird.

 And of course I must not forget the friendliest of all the birds at Cascade Creek; the bush robin.