Category: photography

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 26, 2026 • 8:15 am

In the absence of much of a backlog, I’ve stolen some gorgeous photos from reader Scott Ritchie of Cairns, Australia (his FB page is here).  Scott’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Recently I visited my friends, Karen and David Young in the Crater Lake cabins near Lake Eacham, Atherton Tablelands, west of Cairns. This area is a mega for birds and they did not disappoint. In particular, we got great up close and personal views of our local bird of paradise, bird of prayer, paradise, the Victoria rifle bird.

The male of the species has jet black feathers. However, in just the right light you get a lovely iridescent reflection. The other thing these birds do is dance. It’s an amazing shuffling of the wings while top of stump while throwing their head out and flashing your lovely iridescent blue throat. The immature riflebird is a beautiful brown/rufous color, and they can’t help to practice their dance moves. And of course dad’s gotta come along and join in the festivities.

Also, here’s a few photos of some other creatures that I saw on my little five hour trip to the table lands. I hope you enjoy them.

Male Victoria’s Riflebird (Ptiloris victoriae),in full dance pose. Note the jet black feathers:

Swishes wings sideways, like a flying saucer. Peering above the wings:

But in the right light, iridescent rainbows appear:

I love the cooper and purple sheen on his back:

Meanwhile, youngster, an immature male, practices his dance moves. He leans back, showing off his wild yellow throat:

“Peek-a-boo”
Stands up, and swishes his wings back and forth, hiding his head behind them:

Then stands proud:

And then the adult male shows up. I’ll show you who’s boss:

Has he lost his mind?

I’m definitely King of the Stump:

Off youngster goes, only to be replaced by another male!:

And a few other local birds made an appearance. Pacific Emerald Dove (Chalcophaps longirostris):

Macleay’s Honeyeater (Xanthotis macleayanus):

Grey-headed Robin (Heteromyias cinereifrons):

And the musky rat-kangaroo (Hypsiprymnodon moschatus), our smallest proper roo!:

And the Boyd’s Forest Dragon (Lophosaurus boydii) appeared for the lizard and snake lovers:

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 23, 2026 • 8:15 am

Send ’em in if you got ’em.  The photo situation is dire.

But today we have whale photos by reader Ephriam Heller. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

The best whale watching I have experienced is observing gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) in the San Ignacio Lagoon on the Pacific coast of the Baja peninsula in Mexico. These whales are curious and “friendly,” often swimming up to boats to observe their occupants and even allowing themselves to be touched. Here is an example of an interaction between two species that each appear to exhibit curiosity and intelligence:

This is what a gray whale looks like (Image courtesy of International Whaling Commission):

They engage in numerous photogenic behaviors, such as rolling, riding the surf, waving their flippers and flukes in the air, and spyhopping to observe their surroundings.

The gray whale has longitudinal double blowholes. People claim that they form a heart shape, but think a heart with this shape needs immediate treatment:

When the sunlight hits their spray just right, one sees “rainblows”:

The gray whale has the most parasites of any whale, carrying up to 180 kg. At birth, babies have no barnacles or sea lice, but quickly acquire them from their mothers. The older the whale, the more barnacles and lice they collect. The whales rub along the seabed and piers to try to rid themselves of the parasites.

The whales carry one species of barnacle and four species of whale lice. The barnacles are Cryptolepas rhachianecti (whale barnacles) which are specific to gray whale hosts (i.e., they rarely occur on any other species), and they die when the whale dies.

There are four species of “whale lice,” which are not true lice (which are insects) but are amphipods in family Cyamidae: Cyamus scammony (the most common), Cyamus kessleri, and Cyamus eschrichtii are all found only on gray whales. Cyamus ceti is found on gray and bowhead whales. These cause minor irritation to healthy whales. Researchers view cyamid coverage and distribution (e.g., heavy clusters near blowhole, mouthline, genital slit) as indicators of stress, nutritional status, and chronic skin disease rather than as a primary cause of these problems.

There are two populations. The larger Eastern North Pacific population migrates along the continental coast between its breeding grounds in Baja, Mexico and its feeding grounds in Alaska. The small Western North Pacific population migrates along the Pacific coast of Asia. Gray whales hold the record for the longest migration of any mammal, with typical round-trip distances of about 20,000 km annually (although this isn’t close to the 70,000 km migration of the arctic tern).

Whales fall into two suborders: baleen (Mysticeti) and toothed (Odontoceti). Gray whales are in Mysticeti and use their baleen to feed on amphipods and plankton on the seafloor. During the six month summer feeding season, adults consume over 1 ton of food per day. They then fast for the remainder of the year, including the migration and winter birthing / breeding season. They exhibit “handedness,” in that most gray whales feed by scooping up sediments from the seafloor with the right side of their heads, resulting in their right sides having fewer adhering barnacles and sea lice.

They live up to ~70 years. Biggs transient killer whales (orcas) kill up to 35% of the calf population annually. Based on scarring, researchers speculate that almost every gray whale has been attacked by orcas. Most attacks occur as the young calves migrate north through Monterey Bay, California and Unimak Pass, Alaska.

The Eastern North Pacific population dropped to ~1,000 individuals around 1885 due to whaling, but has since recovered to ~27,000 in 2015-2016. The Western North Pacific population is tiny, comprising just a few hundred individuals. North Atlantic populations were extirpated (perhaps by whaling at the end of the medieval warm period) on the European coast in the 12th to 14th centuries, and on the American and African Atlantic coasts around the late 17th to early 18th centuries. Remains of gray whales from the time of the Roman empire have been found in the Mediterranean Sea, and they are still rarely seen there in modern times.

The gray whale has a dark slate-gray color and is covered by characteristic gray-white patterns, which are scars left by parasites that drop off in its cold feeding grounds. Individuals can be identified by their pigmentation patterns and their scars. I got this great photo of a whale’s tail; but it was just a fluke:

In case you are the kind of person who is interested in this sort of thing, this is what it looks like when whales mate:

Anyone with a younger brother will recognize this as the “head butt” greeting, a conserved behavior across all mammal species:

And this is the view when you saddle up a gray whale (I use a western saddle):

The eyes of gray whales are unlike the eyes of any other mammal I have seen, with what appear to be tangled filaments. My AI friend assures me that this is not the case and that they do not have any “extra” organs in their eyes: “The ‘tangled filaments’ you’re seeing are structures in the gray whale’s iris and surrounding tissues that become visible because the eye is small, very dark, and strongly three‑dimensional, so you are effectively looking across folded, ridged iris and ciliary tissues rather than through a flat, open pupil as in most mammals you see up close.”

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 22, 2026 • 8:15 am

Today we have some travel and wildlife photos from reader Jan Malik.  Jan’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. (Don’t miss the Taiwan barbet!)

Here are a few pictures I took during my short stay in Taipei, Taiwan (Republic of China) in 2016. Business trips usually allow very little time for sightseeing — the familiar, morbid cycle of airport → hotel → conference room → hotel → airport — but on this occasion I had a few free hours in the afternoon. Naturally, I decided to explore the nearby Taipei Botanical Garden with a birding lens that mysteriously strayed into my suitcase:

On my way to the Botanical Garden, I visited the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park and Hall, the latter built in the late 1970s after the President’s death. I include it here for documentary reasons — who knows how long it is going to survive, given the volatile political situation.

Inside stands a larger‑than‑life sculpture of the Generalissimo. Taiwan’s history is typical of right‑wing dictatorships which, like South Korea, Spain, or Portugal, began as oppressive authoritarian regimes and then evolved into genuine democracies. Conversely, left‑wing dictatorships typically resist fundamental change and persist until their eventual collapse:

Onward to wildlife. The entrance to the Mausoleum was guarded by a lion (Panthera leo var. lapideus):

Already in the Botanical Garden, I encountered a cat, doing what cats do best – contemplating:

In one of the alleys I came upon a sizable crowd — people were observing local celebrities, a pair of nesting Oriental magpie‑robins (Copsychus saularis). The birds seemed completely unfazed by the attention, the male singing and standing guard at the nest;

These birds are bold and well adapted to human habitats. The female does most of the feeding; here she brings an unidentified moth to her chicks in a rotted‑out branch stump:

At a nearby pond I spotted a duck. It was likely a domestic bird, possibly with a dash of wild Mallard  (Anas platyrhynchos) ancestry:

The pond was full of lotus plants, which provided excellent habitat for the Common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus). Like all rails, these birds have relatively small wings and strong feet, well suited to foraging on land as well as in water. They swim well despite lacking webbing between their toes. These traits help explain why, when rails successfully colonize remote predator‑free islands, they often evolve reduced flight or complete flightlessness;

Moving further along the park alleys, I spotted a Taiwan barbet (Psilopogon nuchalis) looking out of its nest cavity. As an endemic species, it was a special find for me. Barbets vary widely in sexual dimorphism — in the Taiwan barbet the sexes are practically indistinguishable, in others (like the Coppersmith barbet) the differences are subtle, and in still others (such as the Red‑and‑yellow barbet) they are striking. I wonder why, in this species, bright coloration in females is not maladaptive. Perhaps the fact that they are obligate cavity nesters shields incubating females from predators. The same logic applies to woodpeckers, whose sexes are also similar aside from modest red patches in males:

Shortly after the barbet, I hit another jackpot in my endemics count — the Taiwan blue magpie (Urocissa caerulea). Like other corvids, it is social and omnivorous, and like Taiwanese barbets, it is sexually monomorphic. Corvids also evolved cooperative breeding: fledglings often remain with their parents and help raise the next brood. This likely evolved through kin selection. Why does it work so well in corvids and not in most other birds? Perhaps in environments with limited resources, young birds have better reproductive success by helping relatives than by attempting to breed independently?:

Having spent some time observing the magpie, I moved on — my remaining time before the flight was getting short. Soon I saw another first for me, though a common sight in Southeast Asia: the light‑vented bulbul (Pycnonotus sinensis). An omnivorous bird, here it was about to snatch a ripe fig:

Moving on, I photographed a dragonfly, which I believe is a male Crimson Marsh Glider (Trithemis aurora). These insects are sexually dimorphic, with olive‑colored females. This male appears to be orienting its abdomen toward the sun to reduce the surface area exposed to solar radiation and prevent overheating — a behavior known as “obelisking”:

Near the Botanical Garden exit I saw the last animal in this series, the Eurasian tree sparrow (Passer montanus). They always bring a smile to my face. Unlike many other sparrows, the sexes are alike. In 1958 they were targeted during China’s “Four Pests” campaign, a fine example of how ideology can override basic biological understanding:

While driving toward the airport that evening, I saw a Buddhist temple by the roadside, adorned with a symbol that, in European cultural circles, evokes entirely non‑religious sentiments. It was adopted in the 1920s by the National‑Socialist German Workers’ Party, but in Asia it is an ancient religious emblem. It is not identical to the Hakenkreuz — it “rotates” counterclockwise — and its meaning here is entirely benign:

 

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 21, 2026 • 8:15 am

James Blilie is back with some black-and-white photos from his perambulations and climbs.  Jim’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. And Jim tells us he’s recovering well from a knee replacement.

Here is another set for your consideration:  Black and white landscape images from those I posted on that previously mentioned FB page for B&W images.

First up are two shots from our attempt to climb Mount McKinley (as it was named at the time) in May 1987.  We did not summit (“worst May weather since 1960-something”):

Rocky outcrop in the Kahiltna Glacier, scanned Tri-X Pan

Camp on the Kahiltna Glacier with the summit in the background, scanned Tri-X Pan:

Our local mountain, Mount Adams, but from the other side, the north side, 1987.  I climbed it three times, always from the north.  The “standard” route is on the south side.  Scanned Tri-X Pan:

Skiers in Garibaldi Provincial Park, British Columbia, 1988, scanned Kodachrome 64:

Dinner preparation, Nepal, 1991, scanned Tri-X Pan:

The Vietnam War Memorial, Washington, DC, January 1992, scanned Tri-X Pan

Letchworth State Park, New York, November 1992, scanned Tri-X Pan:

Elephants, Amboseli National Park, Kenya, 1991, scanned Kodachrome 64:

Bonneville Salt Flats, Nevada, June 2013:

Mount Hood, taken from our driveway, December 2023:

Kalaloch Beach, Olympic Peninsula, June 2025:

Equipment:

Current:

Olympus OM-D E-M5, micro-4/3 camera (crop factor = 2.0)
LUMIX G X Vario, 12-35MM, f/2.8 ASPH.  (24mm-70mm equivalent, my walk-around lens)
LUMIX 35-100mm  f/2.8 G Vario  (70-200mm equivalent)
LUMIX G Vario 7-14mm  f/4.0 ASPH  (14-28mm equivalent)
Leica DG Vario-Elmar 100-400mm, F4.0-6.3 II ASPH., Power O.I.S. (200mm-800mm equivalent)

The scanned images:

Pentax camera bodies:  LX, K-1000, ME-Super, MX
Various Pentax M-series and A-Series lenses:
20mm f/4
20mm f/2.8
50mm f/2.0
200mm f/4
Tokina ATX 80-200mm f/2.8

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 19, 2026 • 8:15 am

Today we have part 2 of Ephraim Heller’s photos of arachnids taken on a recent trip to Trinidad and Tobago (part 1 is here). Ephraim’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Spiny orb-weavers (genus Micrathena) include over 119 species. What immediately distinguishes micrathena from other orb weavers is the bizarre armature of the female’s abdomen: an array of hardened spines and conical tubercles that give these small spiders an alien appearance. These spines have evolved independently at least eight times within the genus and likely function as anti-predator defenses, making the spider difficult or unpleasant to swallow.

The tropical orb weaver (Eriophora ravilla) is a large, nocturnal species. What makes eriophora ravilla distinctive among orb weavers is its strictly nocturnal web-building behavior. Each evening after dark, the spider constructs an enormous orb web with a main support thread that can stretch over 18 feet, then tears down the entire interior webbing before dawn. During the day, the spider hides in a rolled leaf bound with silk, invisible to casual observers. I was attracted by the shape and coloration of these spiders:


The genus Meri belongs to the family Sparassidae, the huntsman spiders. Huntsman spiders are characterized by their laterally extending, crab-like legs, rapid movement, and hunting lifestyle. They do not build webs. Instead, they actively pursue and overpower prey, relying on speed and ambush tactics. Sparassids are among the fastest-running spiders. Though their venom can cause local swelling, pain, or nausea in humans, huntsman bites are rarely medically significant. This handsome individual is perhaps Meri trinitatis:

Switching from spiders to their distant arachnid cousins, the harvestmen (order Opliones), the key differences are:

– Body plan. Spiders have two distinct body segments: a cephalothorax (prosoma) and an abdomen (opisthosoma), joined by a narrow waist called the pedicel. Harvestmen have a fused body in which the cephalothorax and abdomen are broadly joined, giving them a single, compact oval shape.

– Eyes. Most spiders possess six to eight eyes arranged in species-specific patterns. Harvestmen typically have just two eyes, often mounted on a raised turret (ocularium) atop the body.

– Venom and fangs. Spiders possess venom glands connected to their cheliceral fangs, which they use to subdue prey. Harvestmen lack venom glands entirely: they are completely harmless to humans.

– Silk. All spiders produce silk from spinnerets, whether they build webs or not. Harvestmen cannot produce silk at all.

– Respiration. Spiders breathe through book lungs and/or tracheae. Harvestmen breathe exclusively through tracheae, with spiracles located near the base of the fourth pair of legs.

– Reproduction. Male spiders transfer sperm indirectly via modified pedipalps. Male harvestmen possess a true penis and transfer sperm directly, a rarity among arachnids.

– Defense. When threatened, many harvestmen secrete noxious chemicals from specialized scent glands (ozopores) on the prosoma, producing a distinctive acrid odor. Spiders rely on venom, retreat, or urticating hairs (in tarantulas) for defense.

The harvestmen I photographed belong to the genus Phareicranaus in the family Cranaidae. Cranaids are stout, heavily armored harvestmen, very different in appearance from the daddy longlegs familiar to North Americans. I believe these are Phareicranaus calcariferus:

What makes this species notable for a harvestman is its parental care behavior. Field observations in Trinidad documented both maternal and possibly biparental care of young, a rare finding. Adult females were observed guarding clusters of nymphs, and in some cases, both a female and a male were present with young. This kind of prolonged parental investment is unusual among arachnids and speaks to the selective pressures – particularly predation by ants and fungal infection of eggs – that have driven the evolution of parental care in Neotropical harvestmen.

Finally, an unidentified harvestman:

Note: all of these photos were taken using a Nikon Z8 or Z9 camera, a NIKKOR Z MC 105mm ƒ2.8 VR S macro lens, and a Nikon SB-5000 Speedlight flash.

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 17, 2026 • 8:15 am

Today we have some photos of New Zealand’s forest birds from reader David Riddell. David’s captions and IDs are indented (don’t miss the informative text!), and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

In previous batches of images I’ve posted here I’ve focused mostly on New Zealand’s water birds, and particularly the oceanic birds which are such a significant part of our avifauna.  Compared to most similarly sized temperate countries New Zealand has relatively few indigenous land birds, partly a consequence of our isolation and partly due to the history of extinctions since these islands were first colonised by humans in the 13th century.  On the other hand a high proportion of those birds are endemic, often with no close relatives elsewhere.  Most of these photos are from a road trip our family did in October 2019, from our home in the central North Island down through the South Island to Stewart Island, the southernmost and by far the least modified of New Zealand’s main islands.

The first major destination on our trip was the Heaphy Track, in the north-west of the South Island, where we walked in to the first hut from the south-western end, and a short distance up the Heaphy River valley. The tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) is still quite common in many parts of the country, and in the last 15 years have re-established themselves in the area where I live in the rural, lowland Waikato region, but in the Heaphy we saw a flock of several dozen, which is still an unusual sight.  They’re one of two New Zealand members of the honeyeater family, which are much more diverse in Australia.  This one has a dusting of pollen on its face from feeding on New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax):

South Island tomtits (Petroica m. macrocephala) are a common and approachable bird throughout forested parts of the island and its outliers. Males have a yellow flush on the upper breast which the North Island subspecies lacks:

Weka (Gallirallus australis) are flightless rails about the size of a bantam hen, and are well-known for their bold and fearless nature – we often had them hassling us for food scraps as we went along the Heaphy Track. They seem able to handle most exotic mammalian predators, and are known to catch and eat rats, though they have disappeared from large areas of the country, possibly due to disease.  In some areas, however, they are making a comeback and expanding into new territory:

There is another flightless rail in New Zealand which is even larger – in fact it’s the largest rail in the world – the takahe (Porphyrio hochstetteri). Four individuals were sighted in the latter half of the 19th century – and promptly “collected” –  after which they were believed to be extinct, before being rediscovered in the remote south-west of the South Island in 1948.  Intensive management has seen numbers slowly rise to about 300, with a couple of new populations established on the South Island mainland, as well as others on predator-free islands.  These ones are on Kapiti Island, off the south-west coast of the North Island.  There was also a North Island takahe species (Porphyrio mantelli, also known as moho), which was very similar, though taller and more slender, but now extinct.  Both were originally classed in the genus Notornis, but molecular studies have revealed that they appear independently derived from flighted gallinules, known in New Zealand as pukeko (Porphyrio melanotus), colonising separately from Australia in a nice example of parallel evolution:

Our next stop after the Heaphy was Arthur’s Pass, one of the main routes across the Southern Alps which run along most of the length of the South Island. A special treat was the view we had out the kitchen window of our accommodation, where a pair of riflemen (Acanthisitta chloris) had their nest in a retaining wall just a few feet away.  This is the male; riflemen (named for their bright green “jackets”) are New Zealand’s smallest bird, weighing only 6 grammes, and have extremely short tails.  They’re reasonably common in larger, less disturbed forest areas, but always a delight to see.  Their call is so high-pitched that many people can’t hear it at all.  The family they belong to, the Acanthisittidae or New Zealand wrens, is the sister group of all other passerines, meaning they’re the most ancient of living families of perching birds:

Only one other New Zealand wren species remains extant, the rock wren (Xenicus gilviventris). It’s much rarer than the rifleman, and is mostly confined to alpine areas above the bushline, where it spends the winters among rocks and low vegetation covered by snow. This one was at the head of the Otira Valley in Arthur’s Pass.  The other four or five species in the family are now extinct; three are thought to have been flightless, an extremely unusual feature for passerines.  The only one of these to have survived into the period of European settlement, the so-called Stephens Island or Lyall’s wren (Traversia lyalli), is often said to have been wiped out by a single cat (in some recent tellings given the name “Tiddles” or “Tibbles”), belonging to the lighthouse keeper, Lyall.  In reality the island was overrun with feral cats (since eradicated), and the island’s population was a relict of a formerly widespread distribution throughout the country:

Most people think of parrots as warm climate birds, but one New Zealand species is quite at home in alpine areas, though it also occurs in lowland regions of the South Island. Kea (Nestor notabilis) are regularly seen around Arthur’s Pass, often scrounging for handouts, though feeding them is discouraged.  They’re regarded as one of the world’s most intelligent birds, and the rubbish bins at Arthur’s Pass have to have special kea-proof catches.  Some also figured out that they could hook their claws into the wool on sheep’s backs and peck at the fat around the kidneys, usually resulting in blood poisoning and the death of the sheep.  Consequently there was a bounty on them for many years, though they’ve been fully protected since 1986, and changes in management practices since then have reduced conflicts.  This one is looking rather bedraggled in the rain, about to turn to snow:

Kea have a close relative, the kaka (Nestor meridionalis) which is more common and widespread, though it has also declined significantly. On Stewart Island, where this one was, there are big numbers flying around Oban, the island’s only town (population c. 380).  The flowers it’s feeding on are from a New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax), the plant responsible for the orange dusting on the tui in the first photo.  It’s no relation of the plant that produces linen, but does produce a very coarse fibre which was once the basis for a substantial industry:

Last year we were delighted to have four kaka flying around our garden, an unusual sight in settled parts of the Waikato, though there seem to be more and more around here as the years go by. The tree it’s in is a kowhai (Sophora microphylla), whose flowering is a sure sign of the arrival of spring:

Perhaps not such a great picture, but this is completely unretouched! It’s a photo of an infra-red night vision viewer screen, pointed at a southern brown kiwi, or tokoeka (Apteryx australis).  It was wandering around my feet, hence the foreshortened appearance and apparently small legs; I think the “eye” is a raindrop on the screen (it was raining lightly at the time, as it often does on Stewart Island).  The photo was taken in pitch darkness at about 5.30 am on the rugby ground on the edge of the town.  It’s known as a good spot for kiwi, but when we tried the previous night there was no sign of them, just a dozen or so people wandering round with torches covered in red cellophane, the recommended way to look for kiwi.  On another evening we did see one wandering along the waterfront road under the streetlights, very close to our hotel:

Just off Stewart Island is Ulva Island, which was cleared of rats in 1997 (there have been occasional incursions since, but so far these have all been contained), and is now home to an excellent range of indigenous flora and fauna. Perhaps the most special is the South Island saddleback (Philesturnus carunculatus), which by the early 20th century was confined to a small island group off the southern end of Stewart Island.  In 1962 rats got ashore and rapidly began eating their way through everything on the islands.  An emergency rescue mission by the Wildlife Service captured 36 saddleback and relocated them to predator-free islands; without this action the species would certainly now be extinct.  Other species weren’t so lucky, including the last population of a third acanthisittid species, the bush wren (Xenicus longipes).  The South Island saddleback has a distinct juvenile phase, known as a jackbird, which is light brown, without the adults’ wattles, and no saddle.  Their North Island counterpart (Philesturnus rufusater), sometimes regarded as a subspecies, lacks the jackbird phase, has a narrow gold band along the front edge of the saddle, and has a more complex song repertoire.  In the final chapter of The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins uses the ability of saddleback individuals to learn new songs from each other as a non-human example of cultural (non-genetic) inheritance, a concept for which he coined the term “meme”:

Saddlebacks belong to an endemic family, the New Zealand wattlebirds, or Callaeidae. One species, the huia (Heteralocha acutirostris), is extinct, while another, the South Island kokako (Callaeas cinereus) may be, with the last probable sighting in 2007.  The North Island kokako (C. wilsoni) has a few secure populations on predator-free islands, and slowly increasing populations in several closely managed reserves in the northern North Island.  Ecologically they’re rather like squirrels (or perhaps flying squirrels), bounding through the trees on their long legs, eating mostly fruits and leaves, and flying very poorly.  Their song is hauntingly beautiful – I have it as the ringtone on my phone.  This individual, on Tiritiri Matangi Island, shows well the powerful legs and almost ridiculously small wings.  Note also the blue wattles – they’d be orange on a South Island kokako:

Back on Ulva Island, the Stewart Island robin (Petroica australis rakiura) often follows human visitors quite fearlessly, looking for insects they might disturb as they walk along. They’re smaller than the South Island subspecies (P. a. australis) and quite scarce on Stewart Island itself, due to the presence of rats and cats:

Ulva Island is one of the few places it’s possible to see two of New Zealand’s parakeet species together. This is a red-crowned parakeet (Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae), which is very rare on the mainland, though it has several secure island populations:

This one is a yellow-crowned parakeet (Cyanoramphus auriceps), photographed on Little Barrier Island (I didn’t get any pictures on Ulva). They’re slightly smaller than their red-crowned cousins, with paler, lime-green plumage, and a chattering call that’s more high-pitched.  They spend more time in trees and less on the ground, which makes them less vulnerable to mammalian predators and hence are more common on the mainland, though they require tall, well-established forests where predation is an issue:

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 15, 2026 • 8:30 am

Mark Sturtevant has returned with some excellent arthropod photos. Mark’s caption and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. Note that his stacking method is time-consuming; the third picture, he says, took “weeks,” and he’s still not finished.

Here is another set of local insect pictures, all manual focus stacks from either a staged setting from where I live in eastern Michigan, or at a local park.

The first was a visitor at the porch light. This beetle is a female stag beetle (Dorcus parallelus), and I was surprised about the ID because it was barely an inch long. Males of this species have mandibles only slightly larger than those in females:

The next picture is a Longhorn Beetle, Astyleiopus variegatus:

Next is a scene of symbiotic interactions between aphids and ants, where the aphids bribe the ants into protecting them by producing sugary secretions. The ants appear to be New York Carpenter Ants (Camponotus novaeboracensis), and I don’t know why they are called that since the species has a very wide range in the U.S. They are here tending aphids of an unknown species on a thistle plant. This picture is in a way impossible since an extreme macro picture like this cannot have much depth of focus, and it is also impossible to extend focus by conventional focus stacking since ants never sit still. So I’ve been spending weeks extending the depth of this picture from bits and pieces of several pictures. I am still not done doing this, but Mark needs a break so out it goes, into the public:

Dragonflies are next. These too are quick manual focus stacks but with a telephoto lens. Probably my favorite field for photographing dragons is a two hour drive away, but it is worth it because there is a field that is swarming with many species, including species that I don’t see elsewhere.

The first of these is a Common Green Darner Anax junius, which is a common species but what was exciting for me was that this is a male. Females land. Females are so easy to photograph that I usually don’t even bother. But males? No. Males fly pretty much all day, and I seldom get a chance with them:

But the best reason to visit the “dragonfly field” are its Clubtail dragonflies (Family Gomphidae). The main flight season for Clubtails is June, so that is when I make a point to visit the dragonfly field where there are ten documented species from this family. I have photographed all but two from there. Clubtail dragonflies tend to be marked in yellow and black, and they have a thickened end on their abdomen. But not all species have this color scheme, and some are more ‘club-tailed’ than others. A couple things to like about them as a group are the many species, and their reliability for perching on or near the ground. This is in stark contrast to certain other dragonflies (i.e., male Green Darners!)

The first of these are some of the ‘big-club’ Clubtails, and we start with a Midland Clubtail (Gomphurus fraternus):

The next is the impressively clubbed Cobra Clubtail (Gomphurus vastus):

And here is another one, the Skillet Clubtail (Gomphurus ventricosus), which is perched on Poison Ivy. Just to make things interesting, much of the ground cover in the dragonfly field is Poison Ivy. You should not even touch this stuff:

Do you see the differences in the above three species? Me neither! But upon close comparison, there are small differences in their markings that can be discerned. Most of the time when I am out there, I don’t know what big club species I am photographing.

Not all Gomphids are like the above. Here is a Lancet Clubtail (Phanogomphus exilis), which is probably the most common Gomphid in this park:

And here is an example of a very different dragonfly in the clubtail family, the Rusty Snaketail (Ophiogomphus rupinsulensis). There is another species of snaketail in the field, but it is rare and I have yet to see it. Just another reason to make the drive every June:

Now all of the above species of dragonflies are under 2” in length, so considerably shorter than your little finger. But dragonfly field hosts the largest Clubtail in the U.S. called the Dragonhunter (Hagenius brevistylus), which is about 3.5” long — the length of your index finger.

Does that still seem small? I promise if you see one you will stop and stare. Everyone does, because in the field they look big. The Dragonhunter is not even the largest of our dragonflies but they are probably the heaviest. Dragonhunters get their common name from their habit of eating other dragonflies. Admittedly, most dragonflies do that, but Dragonhunters seem to have a reputation for it. Even though I have seen many dozens by now, they always get my undivided attention when one goes cruising by: