Readers’ wildlife photos (and videos)

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Today we have part 2 of polymath Robert Lang‘s photos—and a video—of his recent trip to New Zealand. (Part 1 is here.) Robert’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

New Zealand, Part 2: Birds of Field and Forest

Continuing our visit to New Zealand, here’s a selection of birds from various inland locations, all on the South Island.

We start with the Takehē (Porphyrio hochstetteri), an indigenous flightless rail. They were thought to be extinct at one point. These two were at a breeding sanctuary:

One of the iconic birds of New Zealand is the Kea (Nestor notabilis), a large parrot of the South Island that is famous for stripping tourists’ cars of their rubber sealing, given half a chance, using their rather vicious-looking beak. We looked long and hard for them, and eventually spotted some.

A juvenile:

And an adult:

Another parrot, the Red-Crowned Parakeet (Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae) is smaller and brighter-colored.

The New Zealand Falcon (Falco novaeseelandiae) is New Zealand’s only falcon, which makes ID-ing a bit easier. This one was quite distant and flying to boot, so while this photo is a bit fuzzy, I was pretty lucky to get even this.

And now a few small birds of the deeper forest. First, a South Island Robin (Petroica australis), or in Maori, the Kakaruwai.

The Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) was introduced to New Zealand, but unlike so many other introduced species, doesn’t seem to be causing problems:

The rifleman (Acanthisitta chloris) (Māori: tītipounamu) is a tiny bird and most of our views of them happened as they darted out of photography range. We were very lucky that this one stood still for its close-up.

One of the most distinct forest birds is the New Zealand Fantail (Rhipidura fuliginosa). They don’t sit still for very long, but when they flick out their tail like this one, you definitely know which bird it is:

This South Island Saddleback (Philesturnus carunculatus) sat right next to the trail and preened for several seconds, so I shot some video:

But the star of the show (and a big part of reason for visiting New Zealand) is the bird who lends its name to the locals: the Kiwi. Or in this case, the Southern Brown Kiwi (Apteryx australis). This video was shot on Stewart Island, off the southern coast of the South Island. Because of its isolation, it had not been colonized by stoats, and so had a healthy population. We went out late at night with red lights (the kiwis ignored both the lights and us) and I shot this video, converted to B/W (because it looks weird in all-red).

 

They snuffled about in the grass, using their sensitive bills (which have nostrils at the tip) to find insects and such.

Coming next: Wildlife that’s not a bird.