This is half-pie.

Unusually for Wellington, today is a day of vertical rain. The sun pokes through from time to time but generally it’s a soft light, a growing light. Sadly for our tree, the sparrows have returned again this year: it is they who account for the fallen blossom, not our wind. We are lacking a tuī to take a stand and own the tree against all comers.

And I regret now the freakshow filter I put on this hastily shot iPhone photo. But here are plenty from earlier years to make up for it.

Previous springtimes:

• 22 September 2010
• 4 September 2009
• 21 September 2008
• 10 September 2006
• 11 September 2005
• 29 September 2004
• 2 October 2003
• 22 September 2002

This weekend I’ve been back down on the farm for A Significant Birthday (not one of mine). Which was very nice.

Another really nice thing was being there in autumn. It’s probably been 20 years since the last time I was in Central Otago in the autumn, and I’ve really missed those colours.

The other thing I miss are bellbirds, of which there are few in Wellington, though possibly increasing in number. My Mum has several (fairly sleek and well-fed) individuals she feeds in a tree outside the kitchen window, and every half an hour their regular beat takes them by. On their way past they stop to sing, and so their song is always nearby.

Of course, I had to try and get some photos…

I stood under the beech tree by the old rough-cast concrete water tank, and as one of the males swung by for a feed by I repeated its song back at it. He flittered about in the tree a bit, working his way closer, pausing every so often to cast his fairly spooky red eye at me.

I kept whistling my response back. Closer and closer he came, until he bounced out of the tree and on to the old tank, just a couple of metres away.

Still, I whistled his song back at him. Off the tank he came and into the shrubs even closer to me.

And then… he dropped down almost to the ground, about a metre or so from my feet. Not since that nearly disastrous time in the apple orchard have I been this close to a bellbird:

Not finding much to impress him, he flew back up into the beech tree, then along to the bird feeder for a drink, then away to the top of a leafless silver birch tree to announce his presence.

Nothing much for him to see. Moving right along to the next item in the day’s business.

Knowing how happy I am to find stick insects, Bella called me outside this morning to have a look at this one, whose exact like we had not seen before:

We have lots of the smooth green ones, and plenty of the brown variants of those, and occasionally some pretty fearsome looking brown and spiky ones.

But there’s so much variation of colour, size and texture that even today’s one probably belongs to one of our previously seen species.

It was probably a member of Genus Acanthoxyla, I thought after I had a good poke about in the Stick Insect pages at Landcare Research.

I particularly like her spines (it’s easily a “she”, because apparently no males have ever been observed for species in this genus, and it would be pretty unlikely for me to be the one finding the exception):

And also I like the rather nice biomechanical look of her segments, and the variegated colour patches which taken in the whole really contribute to the overall camouflage effect:

And then there’s the sheer alienness of her gaze, her incomprehensible mouth, and the rather pretty red patches on her forelimbs:

Yep. Weird. But cool.

I’m so happy we have wee beasties like this around our house.

Yesterday we had been watching out the window as the little common skinks came out of the grass to bask in the sun on the retaining wall outside the kitchen window. They’re pretty spooky though, so I’d never managed to take any photos. They’re another one of those animals that seems to be intensely aware of when it’s being observed: the moment your eye flickers away it will disappear. Like magic.

Later I was mowing a very long patch of grass (we had a few left over from our holiday) when I noticed a sinuous movement across the sparsely grassed dirt left behind by the mower. It was another little skink, now trapped in the open.

Rather than trying to dash for cover, it kept freezing and hoping I would fail to notice it. I corralled it easily, and when it climbed on my right hand I quickly cupped it with my left.

I called for Rosa to get her insect viewer, and we were able to place it in and have a good look¹.

It was very beautiful; all stripes and scales (you can click through to Flickr if you want to see these larger – there’s a couple other shots there too):

As it customary, the girls awarded it a name (“Chocolate, the brown lizard”), and Rosa even tried to pat it. Unfortunately little wild lizards are not calmed by stroking, and it got a little agitated.

We thought we’d better put it back, so we found a spot on the lawn not far from some good cover, in the hope that we could observe its run across the mown grass to safety. To our surprise it did something else:

It had dived right under the grass, into the gaps between the shoots, with the interlocking sward above it providing cover. We tried to follow its progress by looking for the vibrations in the grass, which worked for a little while, until a moment’s inattention lost it from view.

It was easy now to re-imagine it as a terrifying beast of the grass-jungle, squeezing and twisting between the “trees” in search of prey: ants, slaters, and grasshoppers; and it is possible my colourful description may yet prove counterproductive to Rosa’s sleeping-patterns. We shall see.

And meanwhile, little Chocolate is, I hope, none the worse for its own terrifying experience at our hands.

¹ The last time I tried this, when I was a kid, it all went pretty badly. Not that the lizard–a larger one–tried to bite me, but that it voided its bowels all over my fingers, leaving a stink that took several days of hand-washing to disperse.

In neglecting this blog I’ve also been neglecting my related hobby of posting arachno-porn.

Time to fix this. A little.

Well, the other week down by the Taieri River we (or more correctly, that nice Scottish-Kiwi family from Auckland who we kept crossing paths with on the Rail Trail) found a pair of lovely and large water spiders (Dolomedes aquaticus, according to Forster & Forster):

Once I changed lenses I was able to get a nice close-up of the smaller, probably male, individual (though, as always, I never quite get enough depth of field):

Meanwhile, the other one had disappeared around the side of a rock under the water. It sat there and didn’t move, the trapped air around its body providing a silvery aqualung.

Given that this handsome pair were probably in the middle of some sort of courtship process when they were disturbed, I’m thinking this fully qualifies as arachno-porn.

So enough for now.

Five years ago I came across a very weird arachnid in a clump of grass by the side of the house. It was a harvestman – so eight legs like a spider (though much longer and finer), but with more of an all-in-one body shape.

But three things distinguished it from the standard grey-brown european harvestmen we commonly see: it was black and velvety; it had orange stripes; and most obvious of all, it had massively overgrown mouthparts (chelicerae).

By overgrown, I mean HUGE – thicker than its legs, though not longer. Weird and interesting enough that I’ve been hoping to come across another. Which I did, today.

We’d been carting old wool packs of rubbish down the steps to the trailer, filling it up for a trip to the quintessentially suburban Sunday destination, the rubbish tip. And there it was, just inside the top, looking a bit battered.

I carried it back up the hill, and all the while it beat against the inside of my cupped hands. I figured it wasn’t a biter, based on the shape of those mouthparts.

And then, out in the sunshine for some photo modelling. This one didn’t have the same orange stripes, but otherwise it was velvety black and outrageously equipped:

The females, on the other hand, are completely different: orange-brown and lacking in the giant chelicerae–so different that for many years they were thought to be a different species. I caught one of these a few months ago, but neglected to take photos. Small mercies, eh?

Anyway, what else will I find this summer? Wouldn’t mind one of those tailed spiders again…

Just as we were dashing out the door, Rosa spotted this.

They often seem to get “trapped” in the side of our house, something that I think the local blackbirds (and the tuī that are increasingly emulating them) take advantage of.

Yes, our house is painted a revolting pink. And yes, the stick insect is quite the virulent green colour (only slightly heightened by Instagram, in this photo).

We are big fans of stick insects here, yes we are.

…et cetera et cetera, though of course it’s September rather than May. Even so, it’s time for the annual blossom photo.

It has been very windy in the last week, what with that somewhat overhyped spring “storm”¹ covering the country for the last week or so. So our view of the cherry tree has been mainly this sort of thing:

And to top off all that thrashing around, once the wind dies down those the sparrows from two years ago return, attacking the flowers at their base and damaging many enough to have them fall to the (overgrown) lawn below.

You’d think that those territorial tuī in the tree would have something to say about all this. But they’re too busy huffing and puffing at each other to bother chasing the sparrows away every time. There’ll be something left for the them and the kererū in November, but probably not a lot.

But that’s life, for another year.

Previous springtimes:

• 4 September 2009
• 21 September 2008
• 10 September 2006
• 11 September 2005
• 29 September 2004
• 2 October 2003
• 22 September 2002

¹ Later: I’m thinking that I should clarify that “overhyped” applies to a Wellington city-dweller’s experience of the storm and its media precursors, rather than the experience on the farm, which in many places was pretty bloody awful.

Once again, I am the “campaign manager” for the New Zealand Falcon in this year’s Bird of the Year poll. I submitted the following to the Forest & Bird blog in support of the Falcon, where it was published early last week.

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Recently, I managed to obtain an interview with Kakarapiti, a cocky young male kārearea resident in Wellington, to ask who we should vote for for Bird of the Year. His answer was not what I expected.

AM: What do you spend your time on at the moment?

I spend my time on the three “F“s: Flying, Feeding, and, er, Finding a Mate. That’s quite a lot of action to fit into each day. Especially at this time of year where that third “F” is most important.

AM: OK, we’ll try and keep it short. Tell me who should be New Zealand’s Bird of the Year 2010?

Well, I am a fan of blackbirds. They sit in exposed spots and sing about how they own the neighbourhood or something—to be honest I’ve never really listened to their witterings—but the really nice thing is that when they are startled they sometimes fly straight straight up, which means if you time your stoop right you can let them fly right into your talons. Most satisfying.

AM: Hang on a bit there. New Zealand Bird of the Year is when we choose what bird we like the best, not which bird we like to eat the best. Generally we humans like colourful, cute things with nice singing voices–

Pointless! An earful of song never got your belly full. The feathered I like best are the feathered that feeds me. Look, you asked the question, and I shall answer it.

I like ducks, though I am too small to catch them by myself. That is something I hope to do with my future mate. My nest-mother and nest-father once brought a duck back for my sister and I before we fledged. We feasted for a day!

Sparrows are OK, though small. I don’t like starlings. They taste bad. But there are so many of them. And food is food.

AM: You’ve named only introduced birds. Why’s that?

You mean the feathered that arrived with the plague of you? Well, there are so many more of those.

But yes, a tuī is always nice. They think they are so tough in numbers, but they will all take cover when they hear me. I wonder about kaka, but they are a little too smart and large to be easy prey. In days past our larger cousins would have made kaka their prey.

I’m told there are lots of interesting feathered that come out only at night time. There is one, the kiwi, that is much liked by you featherless. What does it taste like?

AM: You can’t eat a kiwi!

What? So you like them, without tasting of them? That does not make sense. I want to taste one. There is a wooded valley not far from here full of the feathered of these islands, and even some kiwi. But that area is already held by a nesting pair and I dare not go there.

I forgot. Another feathered I really like are those white ones some of you keep.

AM: You are talking about pigeons? You realise that’s a bit upsetting, you eating those. They’re our pets you know.

“Pets”? I just do not understand you featherless. If you do not eat them, why do you keep them? Look, they are really easy for me to catch. I just have to wait close by until one of you lets them all out. So easy.

Easy is good. Easy means I have time to do the other two “F“s. Furred and feathered alike, and especially young males, look for the easy. When you were young, what was the easy way for you to get food?

AM: I used to raid the fridge.

All right then. You may think of me as “raiding the fridge”.

AM: Uhhh, OK. Nearly finished now. Last question: How do you feel about being anthropomorphised so shamelessly?

Personally, I do not care. But I think it reflects pretty badly on you so-called brainy monkeys that you have to make your representations of us talk and think like yourselves before you can understand and respect us.

But what would I know: I’m only a bird.

And with that, he was off.

Vote New Zealand Falcon / Kārearea for Bird of the Year. Just don’t eat them.

When not Flying, Feeding, or Finding a mate, Kakarapiti may be found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kakarapiti.

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As it happens, I did manage to take a picture of the resident falcon from our deck last week. But the picture is a little underwhelming:

I’ll have to keep trying. I know they’re around: yesterday morning, at about 5:40am, a falcon woke me up. That hunting cry is pretty alarming, and I’m not even a small bird. And friends of ours watched one eat its prey, perched on their neighbour’s rooftop in Ngaio.

The falcons are out there.

The sunsets here are insanely great. And the days are not far behind. There’s a simplicity to the autumn; the cool south-easterly transmuted by the mountains behind us into a humid breeze carrying the occasional fat raindrops. Out to sea, under the swing of the sun, it’s raining. We are on the Land’s Edge, here.

The girls have been cracking macadamias; but the bananas have been eaten by earlier visitors and the avocadoes are not quite ready yet. Rosa and Bella are in and out of their togs all day, begging us to take them to the swimming pool.

We haven’t even made it down to the beach. There hasn’t been time. The girls have done their reconnection tour though, first thing. Flying Fox: check! Trampoline: check! Mini-golf: check!

Later:

I walk up the hill behind where we’re staying. There’s a path through the bush to a lookout at the top.

The first time we came here I found a giant stick insect, mottled in shades of green like the fern runners clingling to the trees. I suppose I think I’m just going to find another one.

An opportunistic but welcome pīwakawaka follows me, hawking in my trail.

Further up, I get into a singing contest with a pair of korimako. They win, of course, though not without a certain amount of huffiness on their part at the impertinence of the challenge.

At the top the view is immense, and only a little can be taken in at once.

The sea is occasionally speckled with fishing boats; the island volcano lying coiled and quiet, not even steaming. There is a cool breeze from the endless rumpled hills of bush at my back, and the birds make a constant song. The only discordant notes are, as before, the ever-present buzz of wasps; trucks passing far below, and a dog, its bark snatched by the wind and passed far up into the air.

I can see the road as it winds up and down bushy hills; along flats planted in maize and kiwifruit; around rocky headlands where the pohutukawa lean out over the water with outstretched arms.

There’s more detail that can’t be seen from up here: but on that road is a sign that says “Pig Dog Training School”. Underneath, in a different colour, “Bookbinder”. I know that chickens peck the long acre, apparently unperturbed by the pig dogs.

Later again:

Apparently there was snow on top of Hikurangi last night, explaining the cold night; but yet this morning we are in t-shirts and shorts again, almost tempted to break out the sunscreen despite the lateness of the season. It’s hot, though a cool breeze is stirring the pohutukawas as I watch out for the tiny boat that they’ve gone to lift the crayfish pots with. I don’t like boats.

I’m also keeping an eye on a lovely stick insect, green with a creamy white stripe down both sides, that fell on to Rebecca while we dragged the boat out from under the tree. Though I place it in a pohutukawa tree, where it started tentatively munching a leaf, by the time I come back with the decent camera it was gone.

And we have fish for dinner.