Readers’ wildlife photographs

November 18, 2015 • 7:45 am

I have a small backlog of photos, but it’s getting low, which makes me nervous. So please send in your wildlife photos, and make sure they’re  good ones!

We have a special feature today from reader Jim Billie, who wants us to protect bats (they’re being decimated by disease), and who shows us how he’s doing it:

A contribution to you queue of wildlife photos.  Spot the bat(house). No bats yet; but I just built and installed this bat house on the south side of our house, hoping for more bats this coming year (we have to deal with mosquitoes and bats are wonderful mosquito eaters!)  The bat house is on a stand-off from the house to keep the … er … droppings on the ground and not on the side of the house (which can happen)!

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We noticed fewer bats this past summer.  On a normal summer evening, just after sunset, we would typically see 4-6 bats in flight at one time above the pond behind our house.  This year, 2 was the most. We were saddened by this; but it finally got me off my tuchus to build the bat house.

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The third image is “our” pond in summer (with swans).

Bats in Minnesota and elsewhere in the US are suffering badly from white nose syndrome. Bat house construction can be found here. Bats need all the help they can get.  Please build a bat house!

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We can’t have too many pictures of kestrels (Falco sparverius), and Stephen Barnard sent a photo of a male:

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Finally, reader Keith from New Zealand sent three photos:

I have a couple of shots of our New Zealand (Aotearora) common endemic Tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) taken from our deck. We (including my wife Heather, who took the shots) were standing on the deck when two landed on the flax bush Harakeke (Phormium tenax) making a real ruckus, followed by a third, all puffed up and yelling at each other. These were males strutting their stuff for a female who is out of the shot but watching the proceedings; the first shot is a closeup of one the males with puffed out plumage. I think he looked quite wild myself all pumped up. They feed on the nectar from the flax on which they are perched in these shots, so we see them there quite often in the summer. Needless to say, flax was the last thing on their minds on that day. The Tui are very agile, flying between the trees and ponga ferns at breakneck speed, but they look very awkward out in the open.  You can also hear them calling from 0400 am onwards in the morning in summer: one of them ‘owns’ a Kanuka (Kunzea ericodes) tree out front and the calls travel quite a distance.

Tui 4

Tui'sOnFlax

JAC: Here’s a non-puffed-up Tui male from Wikipedia:

1024px-Prosthemadera_novaeseelandiae_-Waikawa,_Marlborough,_New_Zealand-8_(2)

I added a sunrise shot from my home over the Manukau Harbour, Auckland. If you decide to post the Tui shots I don’t mind if you wish to share the sunrise as I have enjoyed seeing where some of the WEIT readers live, and it would be good to see others do the same. There is a little black dot in the middle of the shot, which is a small boat and most probably out fishing. I row out sometimes with a friend on an incoming tide, catch lunch and row back in before we get swept out into the Tasman Sea! As you can see, the Harbour is tidal, and we have waders and various other sea birds which I can forward photos of, plus some other ‘locals’ I would like to share with readers.

6.10 am

JAC: Some day I really want to visit New Zealand, and if I do I hope to visit some of the readers who live in that lovely land.

 

37 thoughts on “Readers’ wildlife photographs”

  1. Excellent pictures as always. I do have a couple of bat houses that have been up for some time, however, I need to get my brother to build some more — soon as he is though overhauling his shop.

  2. Jerry, New Zealand deserves to be on anyone’s “bucket” list. A wonderful, beautiful country with friendly people.

    I hope you get to go soon! 🙂

  4. That sunrise is georgeous, Keith! New Zealand is on my travel list for sure, many cool species to see. I’m looking forward to your photos.

  5. That is a gorgeous sunrise picture. I’m with Jerry, I have got to get to New Zealand some day. Are there any motorcycle rentals available?

    New Zealand is near the top of my list of places to relocate if the US devolves into a major hellhole. My wife has dual citizenship with another Commonwealth country, Canada. In truth, though, we don’t think things would really get that bad. But for some time during Bush Jr’s reign it seemed that it might be possible.

    1. Do you think things are going to improve, what with climate change & 7 billion people likely to be 10 billion mid-century? Dust down that passport!…

      1. Hah! Well, that is going to be a worldwide thing and New Zealand will be significantly affected as well.

        But, point taken!

  6. I was prepared to learn that the tui has a call that sounds like ‘tui!!, but it turns out that the name is from the Maori language. The bird, however, has very complex vocalizations and can be taught to mimic human words.

  7. Can bats survive the winter in Minnesota in a bat house sticking out into the deep freeze? I thought they needed the thermal protection of a cave or the like.

    2. Some migrate (3 of 5 species if memory serves) and some hibernate. I am also amazed by this. We have only tiny bats.

      From the wiki on little brown bats:

      Brown bats typically hibernate in caves and perhaps unused mines. Northern populations of bats enter hibernation in early September and end in mid-May while southern populations enter in November and ends mid-March.[4] Little brown bats are not true hibernators. As observed in the Mid-Atlantic States during periods of warming during the winter, typically over 50 degrees (F), little brown bats emerge from their winter torpor and hunt insects that have emerged as well in response to the warmer conditions.

      We almost never hit +50°F (+10°C) in winter in Minnesota.

      And they do use earth sheltering for hibernation. I think they only use the bat houses in summer.

      The Minnesota DNR lists these species as occurring in MN:

      Species

      The little brown myotis, our most common bat species, occurs over most of North America. Together with the Northern myotis and big brown bat, it hibernates in Minnesota caves and mines. In summer, they roost in caves, mines, hollow trees, and buildings. Groups of these bats hang upside-down in caves. The Tri-colored bat is our smallest species, weighing only two-tenths of an ounce. It is found in the same Minnesota caves and mines, though it is uncommon and almost solitary.

      The silver-haired bat is a forest dweller that usually lives near water. It feeds among the trees much like the Eastern red bat, though the latter is noted for its unusual feeding habits. Usually a red bat pair will fly the same route, over and over, in search of food. Another woodland species is the hoary bat. It is the largest Minnesota bat, weighing an ounce or more. All three species are solitary, roost in trees, and migrate south for the winter.

  8. Full house, bats and birds! This is a recent advance on how bats differ from birds in some important periods of flight, especially when they land upside down, where they are using inertial forces more than aerodynamic:

    “”When they come in to land they’re not moving very fast, which makes it hard to generate the aerodynamic forces needed to reorient themselves,” Breuer said. “So the question is, how do bats get themselves in position to land?”

    Using a special flight enclosure, high-speed cameras and some sophisticated computer modeling, the researchers showed that it has a lot to do with wing mass and inertia.

    Bats’ wings are heavy, hand-like assemblages of bone, muscles, joints, tendons and skin. By throwing that extra wing weight around in very precise ways, bats generate inertial forces in order to reorient themselves, rather than relying on the aerodynamic forces generated by pushing against the air. It’s similar, Breuer says, to the way high divers shift their weight to perform flips and twists, or the way cats reorient themselves to land feet-down when they fall.”
    http://cdn.phys.org/newman/csz/news/800/2015/batsuseweigh.png
    [ http://phys.org/news/2015-11-weighty-wings-upside.html#jCp ]

    If the illustrative photo sequence doesn’t show up, please see the link!

    Bats and cats have a lot of things in common. I wonder if these differences to bird flight explain some of the decidedly odd moves cartoon bats are depicted having?

    Bats in Minnesota and elsewhere in the US are suffering badly from white nose syndrome.

    That reminded me of today’s pick-me-up (besides the report that children vaccine rates hover between 97 and 99 % in Sweden):

    We have cured a population from amphibian chytrid for the first [?] time! “Research published today details the first-ever successful elimination of a fatal chytrid fungus in a wild amphibian, marking a major breakthrough in the fight against the disease responsible for devastating amphibian populations worldwide.”

    [ http://phys.org/news/2015-11-chytrid-scientists-method-killer-fungus.html#jCp ]

  9. Great pics! A timely reminder of few years ago when we spent 3 weeks in NZ, mostly South Island, a truly wonderful experience we hope to repeat someday. There’s hardly a kilometer that doesn’t have something interesting. Ferns (and more ferns!), a lake with an island that has a lake with an island, waterfalls, blue pools, tuataras, sheep (and more sheep!), geysers, glaciers, Hobbiton, wetas, ratas, penguins, wekas, honeydew and of course, kiwis. December/January is a great time to go. And one can enjoy a good slice in almost any town.

  10. Wonderful array of images today!

    I was saddened, this summer, to find absolutely no bats in our yard. For the last 20 years they visited at dusk every evening where they swirl around snagging bugs silhouetted against the sky as the stars come out. I’m eager to see if they return next summer.

    1. We are hoping that WNS will pass through (like West Nile Virus did a few years ago) and then the populations with rebound. We love bat watching on summer evenings.

  11. If you decide to go to NZ, don’t short change it and spend more time in Australia. A lot of people treat NZ as an afterthought and regret that they didn’t spend more time there.

    I like the north country myself since it’s pretty tropical-y (almost) and if you travel from Auckland you can go through Russell and see lovely scenery.

    As for the bats – I have bat houses but no one wants to live in them as there is a nice selection of tall evergreen trees next door that I suspect the bats like living in (right over a pond where they can eat flying insects).

    I saw lots of bats this summer as they caught flying insects over my head at dusk.

    1. I agree on NZ. NZ has much more scenic beauty to offer than Oz (IMO) — and it’s much closer together. (Nothing against Oz, I’ve spent months there and loved it.)

      I think if I had to choose one nation as the most beautiful, for its landscape, it would be NZ. It has it all.

    2. Yes, and more yes.
      We planned to spend two weeks and due to the good fortune of having a detached retina which prevented me from flying, we were forced to stay another three weeks. It was a trip of a lifetime. Anyone planing for less that three weeks is making a mistake. The B&B’s are terrific.

        1. We stayed with a retired couple there very near some geysers. They had been teachers. As with all our hosts, I interviewed them on film. The accent is charming.

  12. I feel all proud hearing everyone’s nice comments about NZ, as if I had something to do with it. 🙂

    I love tuis. One place I worked my desk was in front of a big double window. The garden in front of the windows contained three big native flax, and while it flowered I was continually joined by tui feeding on it. The most I counted at once was seven, but usually it was around three. They’re really beautiful.

    The first European settlers called them parson birds because of the white tuft at the throat.

    1. Yeah – they’re also very territorial and aggressive birds. I was out in my garden one day when I heard a thump in the air above. I looked up to see that a tui had grabbed a sparrow in the air. The tui had its wings outstretched and the two birds were spiralling downwards, while the tui methodically clenched each foot with its long claws puncturing the poor sparrow. It looked quite wobbly flying off when the tui released it.

    2. I’m a big fan of pukeko because they look so weird as the wonder around going about their business.

      As a Canadian, when someone tells me “Canada is a beautiful country”, I wrinkle up my nose and say, “really?” I’ve come to understand this is a very Canadian reaction. 🙂

      1. Yeah, pukeko are cool too. They’re lots of people’s favourites. Kea are really popular too of course. My absolute favourite is the fantail/piwakawaka. (It actually has about 20-30 Maori names, so most people use fantail.)

      2. Diana: Yes, Canada is a very beautiful country! 🙂

        The entire eastern seaboard (Nova Scotia!! Newfoundland!)
        The Rockies!
        The lakes of Ontario & Manitoba
        The Arctic
        BC

        I don’t think of S. Ontario exemplary of Canada and I don’t really think of Minnesota where I live) as exemplary of the US.

        The only Province I haven’t been to is PEI. But I haven’t been to NWT, Nunavut, or the Yukon either — but I intend to rectify that soon!

        No Canadian I know well has been to Newfoundland (the island). But I have! Spent a few weeks there in the 1960s as a kid. I remember it well. My Dad knew a Newfie from his days in the US Air Force at Goose Bay Labrador. I think he always wanted to go to Newfoundland; but visiting his buddy was the excuse. It was a wonderful and amazingly remote place in the 1960s.

  13. Jim, nice job on the bat house! I hope it attracts some residents this coming spring.

    What an idyllic pond to live next to!

    Superb (as usual!) Kestrel shot, Stephen!

    Keith, I love the Tui pictures! I got some screen shots of them from a NZ web-cam this year, but the cam quality was quite poor–they looked just plain black. I had no idea they were that gorgeous. And speaking of gorgeous, that sunset…!

    1. This type of sunrise is short lasting but very grand, full colour glow before the sun gains altitude and mellows out. I am glad that you and other readers enjoyed this sight Diane because I never tire of it myself. I just have to be up early..

    2. Thanks, we love it. Across the street is “county open space” — woods, meadow and ponds that will never be developed.

      It’s a fine spot.

  14. I believe you would be very welcome Dr Coyne by us NZ readers of WEIT. Yes, it is a long way to come for a short visit so do take your time while your here down under.
    The bat post made me wonder why we only had one native species of bat and the only mammal (and very small) amongst many bird species of which many are (or were) ex Australian. Australia has quite a few species of bats, none however made the trip across.
    I do feel I am in a good part of this world at the moment, given what’s been going on. Winning the Rugby WC was a bonus and cheered us folk up and against arch rivals Australia which was a double bonus and to win so well!
    As for motorbikes for hire, that’s a yes, the net is a good start and it looked promising.

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