A photo of a spoonbill, a white heron-like wading bird with a long black spoon-shaped bill, feeding in an ephemeral pond with a digger parked on the paddock behind it.

I've been counting birds on my bike work commute between Christchurch and Lincoln, NZ, since 2003. On Friday, I counted my *first ever* Kōtuku Ngutupapa, Royal Spoonbill, on the route.

It was feeding in a paddock that had been recently scraped clear preparing it […]

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A photo of a kererū (NZ woodpigeon) perched up in a tree. It's a big bird with a white breast and blue-green back and head. The head is tiny compared with the big body. Details and my bigger photo are at https://inaturalist.nz/observations/324289256

A photo of a tiny grey bird perched on a branch in a tree. This is a riroriro - NZ grey warbler, one of NZ's two smallest birds. Details and my bigger photo are at https://inaturalist.nz/observations/324289262

A photo of a brown duck on water. The water is a colourful smear of reflections. Details and my bigger photo are at https://inaturalist.nz/observations/324287847

A photo of a California quail perched on a pile of dead branches. This quail is a grey speckled bird with a small black dongle sticking out from the top of its head. Details and my bigger photo are at https://inaturalist.nz/observations/324289258

Here are some birds from my run survey today through southwestern Ōtautahi-Chirstchurch, NZ.

A kererū perched in a tree up Dyers Pass Road: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/324289256

A juvenile riroriro (NZ grey warbler) in a patch of planted native trees at […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]

My photo from today of a kererū (NZ woodpigeon) resting on a branch of a tree lucerne. Kererū are large blue-green birds with a white breast and a read eye and beak. This looks like a younger one.

My photo from today of a South Island fantail, backlit by the late afternoon western skyline. NZ fantails are small insect-catching birds with long fan-shaped tails.

I was running down off the hills this afternoon as part of my monthly biodiversity survey of this Port Hills route. I was carrying cameras and a monocular and a wind-shielded microphone plugged into my phone.

A couple of young guys biked up the hill on their […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]

Original post on mastodon.nz

More #AWSTranscribe fun(?) fixing up errors in the transcriptions of my biodiversity survey notes. Here are some of the latest highlights:

"ammonia mascara" = Amanita muscaria
"Paradise showdown" = Paradise shelduck
"fire blood" = flower buds
"back to back goal" = black-backed gull
"craig […]

A photo of a NZ red admiral butterfly (a dark butterfly with big red blotches and smaller white and blue blotches), feeding from white Viburnum flowers. My full-res photo is at https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297849009

A photo of two small red mushrooms with white stalks, on the forest floor. My full-res photo is at https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297848989

A photo looking down from head height at a thin-leaved spiny plant. This is a taramea, a kind of NZ speargrass (also called spaniard). They're no longer common in the Port Hills, as they're susceptible to grazing by introduced mammals. I map out all the ones I find and add them to iNaturalist. My full-res photo is at https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297848991

A photo of a kererū (NZ wood pigeon) which is a big blue-green bird with a white chest and a red beak. It's perched on a branch at head height about a metre from me. My full-res photo is at https://inaturalist.nz/observations/297848998

Today I did my monthly biodiversity run up into the Port Hills of Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ. That takes my out of the Cashmere suburbs through the planted native forest and grasslands of Victoria Park and up into the old growth and naturally regenerated […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]

A photo of a tūī, an irridescent blue-black bird with a distinctive white bobble (poi) of feathers under its beak. This is my photo. See https://inaturalist.nz/observations/289447711 for more details of where and when.

Check out what I saw on my afternoon run through Cashmere, Christchurch, NZ.

This was on one of my fortnightly ecological survey runs through the city, 12 km, which I started in 2008. Today is the first time I have seen a tūī on this route!

Yeah! […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]

A graph showing the increasing numbers of korimako (NZ bellbirds) seen (or heard) while I'm hanging out or bringing in our laundry. The fitted line on the graph wiggles up and down with the seasons (more in the winter). The line spans 2012–2025.

A graph showing the increasing numbers of piwakawaka (NZ fantails) seen (or heard) while I'm hanging out or bringing in our laundry. The fitted line on the graph wiggles up and down with the seasons (more in the winter). The line spans 2012–2025.

A graph showing the increasing numbers of kerreū (NZ woodpigeons) seen while I'm hanging out or bringing in our laundry. The fitted line on the graph wiggles up and down with the seasons (more in the winter). The line spans 2012–2025.

A graph showing the decreasing numbers of riroriro (NZ grey warblers) seen (or heard) while I'm hanging out or bringing in our laundry. The fitted line on the graph wiggles up and down with the seasons (more in the winter). The line spans 2012–2025.

Here are four of the native birds from my weekly #wildcounts while hanging out or bringing in my laundry.

Korimako (NZ bellbirds) are trending up, and are more often in our garden in the winter.

Piwakawaka (NZ fantail) are doing the same.

Kererū (NZ wood […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]

A graph showing the increasing numbers of kahukura (NZ red admiral butterflies) seen while I'm hanging out or bringing in our laundry. The fitted line on the graph wiggles up and down with the seasons (more in the summer). The line spans 2012–2025.

A graph showing the descreasing numbers of copper butterflies seen while I'm hanging out or bringing in our laundry. The fitted line on the graph wiggles up and down with the seasons (more in the summer). The line spans 2012–2025.

A graph showing the increasing numbers of NZ blue butterflies seen while I'm hanging out or bringing in our laundry. The fitted line on the graph wiggles up and down with the seasons (more in the summer). The line spans 2012–2025.

A graph showing the numbers of monarch butterflies seen while I'm hanging out or bringing in our laundry. The fitted line on the graph wiggles up and down with the seasons (more in the summer). There's no long-term trend. The line spans 2012–2025.

Here are four of the local butterflies from my weekly #wildcounts while hanging out or bringing in my laundry.

Kahukura (NZ red admiral) are trending up, and are more often in our garden in the summer.

Native coppers are trending down (here I've combined the […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]

A photo of our back garden, taken last week, showing our laundry line (with no laundry hanging on it this day). There are some small trees, a water bath for birds, and an orange sugar water feeder. The lawn needs mowing. On the left of the screen are some of my graphs from my monitoring, since this is a screen shot from my talk about nature in this neighbourhood.

Just before Covid knocked me over at the end of last week, I was fortunate to present a talk at the AGM of the Summit Road Society. That's the long-running local community group dedicating to maintaining and restoring the nature and heritage of Christchurch's […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]

Original post on mastodon.nz

I saw a cabbage white butterfly flying by this afternoon, which was a big surprise.

I just checked and this is the first time ever that I've seen a cabbage white adult in June. I've been monitoring butterflies in the city since 2003 and have >37,000 cabbage white observations in my #wildcounts […]

A photo of a daffodil in flower. It's a pretty yellow flower. It's been planted in a garden by the rock wall of a church. Notably, this is flowering on 25 May 2025 in Christchurch, NZ, which means it's the southern hemisphere and it's not even winter yet. This plant is very confused.

You may think this is a photo of a daffodil flowering in the spring, but no, I'm in Christchurch, New Zealand and we're in autumn approaching winter. This is one very confused daffodil.

I pass this patch of plants every two weeks as part of my regular […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]

A photo of part of a scrap sheet of paper on which I've written in pencil each time I saw or heard a selection of my favourite birds. You'll see "Bellb" (Bellbird" and "Ft" (fantail) and "Mp" (magpie) here. I write in a shorthand I invented for this. For example, n1xmv is "near one male vocalisation" where near is within 20 metres.

The hand-written shorthand notes on paper from the previous image typed into a text editor, before being pasted into my database, where they'll get unpacked by an R script. The bird vocalisations (v) all need to be at least 10 seconds apart, and if one song is longer than 10 seconds, it gets "..@" on the end of it. I try to track the different song types of the NZ bellbirds, which is why you see things like "doot Doot DEET Doot DEet doot". Everything is consistently noted in 20 minute intervals, with the first five minutes separated by a pipe (|) so I can compare with standard five-minute bird count data.

I was at home with online meetings today. Some people doodle. I sit by an open window and jot down when I see and hear my favourite wild animals.

It's often quickest to write on paper and enter later. I just typed in today's notes, mostly NZ bellbirds (Bellb) […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]