New Zealand is the land of birds and ferns. Before the Māori arrived 800 or so years ago, the only land mammals on the islands of New Zealand were several species of now extinct or severally endangered bats. As a result, New Zealand was and still is a land of birds and ferns. Of course, I’ve already posted about kiwis. Here are the rest of the terrestrial birds I managed to photograph. There are of course, other birds that I didn’t manage to get a decent (or any) picture of.

Keas

The kea (Nestor notabilis) is an alpine parrot endemic to the alpine areas of south island of New Zealand. Keas are intelligent and curious, like most parrots and are known for pulling the rubber from parked cars. They have also been known to steal sunglasses, cell phones or just about anything else.

Keas are very curious and will investigate you if you allow them. In this case, the kea is investigating the camera.

I had the luck and pleasure of visiting Christchurch only 5 weeks before this most recent earthquake that was so devastating. It was one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever visited, full of friendly people. While traveling around the city I could see signs of “the big one” as they called the Sept earthquake. That earthquake caused significant damage due to its shallow depth and proximity, only 15 or 20 km away. Never the less, the city had bounced back, cleaned up and rebuilt (or was still rebuilding in many cases).

This earth quake, while a little bit less intense, was only a few km from the city center and exceptionally shallow. Many building were structurally damaged and weakened during the last earthquake and all the aftershocks. You have a recipe for a true disaster even with modern engineering… I can’t believe some of the pictures I’ve seen on Flickr of the damage. It is a real tragedy, both in that lives were lost and in the history and architecture that was lost.

Never the less, I believe the Kiwis will bounce back better than ever. They seem to have a self sufficiency and indomitable spirit that the most places in the world currently lack.

Update:

• I’ve found images of the art center and it is still mostly standing.
  
• The hotel Adrian and I stayed at over new years eve, the Grand Chancellor that weathered the Sept quake fine, is in danger of collapse. A 2 block radius has been evacuated around it.
  
  

Chess outside the Cathedral

I’ve been struggling with how to blog my New Zealand trip for a while and I’ve finally decided to do it by subject instead of narratively. Since New Zealand is the land of the kiwi, I’ll start with them!

Adrian really wanted to see kiwis in the wild, so we booked a guided kiwi spotting trip with Ruggedy Range (who put together a well run and pleasant trip). Kiwis are normally nocturnal. Steward Island is the only place where they can possibly be seen foraging during the day time in the wild. Even so, they are very skittish and private. We spent three days hiking, looking for kiwis and saw 3 for a total of about 20 minutes all together. Of course, kiwis are also well camouflaged. I failed to photograph the first kiwi we saw. I couldn’t pick it out and ended up photographing a brown clump of grass by mistake. Only when I reviewed the image did I realize my mistake, seeing the actual kiwi on the edge of the frame. All the pictures here are from our second and third kiwis.

The kiwis on Stewart Island are Stewart Island Brown Kiwi (Apteryx australis lawryi) and are endemic to that island alone.

A brown spotted kiwi forages in the underbrush.