Two weeks in May - the wild life

Well, it is definitely becoming Autumn here. After a lovely April, the weather is much cooler now, and occasionally VERY WINDY. We feel lucky if the high gets to 15C (app. 60F), and we’ve had winds reaching 50 mph. A piece of glass got blown out of the overhang above the door to the Quaker Centre. We’ve had quite a bit of rain, but usually it comes in gusts and showers and then the rest of the day will be ok.

We have been to two wildlife refuges this month, which is where most of the pictures were taken. But first I have to introduce a new member of our entourage. My grand-nephew, AJ Mullen, in second grade in Canby Oregon, is doing a letter writing project with his class, so he mailed us a friend of his named Flat Stanley, from a book of the same name. We have been showing Stanley around Wellington and sending postcards and emails back to AJ. So, Stanley shows up in some of these pictures

New Zealand split off from Australia about 65 million years ago, so it has a very unique set of flora and fauna which evolved here without any mammals at all, and very few predators. Therefore, there are lots of flightless birds, and reproductive rates are slow. Many of the trees grew very, very big. When the Maoris came about 800 years ago, they started the first wave of extinctions, partly thru over hunting and partly by introducing the rat and the dog. For instance, there used to be the moa, a giant bird like the ostrich. Of course, when the Europeans arrived, the changes accelerated The North Island was probably 80% forest, and although the settlers certainly harvested some wood, they were so anxious to clear the land for farm and pasture, that they just burned a lot of it. Now New Zealand is slowly trying to restore habitat and stop extinctions. Many animals are only surviving on small islands which have either never had invasive species, or where it has been relatively easy to remove them.

One of these islands is Matiu/Somes Island in the middle of Wellington Harbour. Because of its location, it was used as a quarantine stop for both animals and humans until about 1920. During both WW1 and WW2, it was used as an internment camp for enemy aliens, including Italian residents of NZ. In the 1980s, rats were eliminated and native species of plants and then animals were re-introduced. So, on one of the warm, calm days that still happen, we took a ferry out to the island for a picnic and walk. We are not good at spotting birds and lizards, etc, but we did see red-crowned parakeets, fantails, and native robins. It only takes an hour to walk around, so you can tell it is a small island. The ferry ride back took us to almost all points of the harbor, north, east and south, so it was a lovely cruise.

Then a few days ago, we took the bus to Karori Sanctuary. Wellington was planned out with green belts around it, and this area had also been part of the water reservoir system, so it probably started out fairly green. Then in the 90s, they decided to turn it into an urban wild life sanctuary. Its approximately one square mile area is surrounded by a pest proof fence, the first of its kind, although it has now been duplicated elsewhere in NZ. They have eliminated invasive mammals, and reintroduced native trees and wildlife. One of the most invasive species that they are trying to eliminate all over NZ is an Australian tree possum. It eats leaves, flowers, fruits, eggs, baby birds, etc. and reproduces very successfully. Don’t know who had the clever idea to bring it over from Australia where it is a protected species. So we had a nice picnic and hike through part of the Sanctuary. We got very good at identifying the tui, a bird with a repertoire that would shame a mocking bird. We saw a tuatara, a small green lizard native only to NZ. There was a sign board in their protected area telling us where to look. Since I have never seen one of these animals actually move, once you know where one is, it is fairly easy to find. The park also puts out logs with dens for a native insect called a weta (pronounced with a short e), which looks sort of like a 2-3 inch long cricket. The park also includes an old gold mine. (New Zealand had its own gold rush in the 1860s.) The mine is supposed to have glow worms and cave wetas, but we didn’t see any.

We continue to hike up to the Botanical Gardens fairly often. We’ve been up 3-4 times and still only walked about half of it. The Botanical Gardens are about the opposite of the wildlife sanctuaries, because they were designed for testing out exotic plants to see what would grow well in New Zealand. Apparently there are more Monterey cypress in NZ than in California because they grow so well here. None the less, we have enjoyed the Rose Garden and the Begonia House and Tropical Hot House.

We also took a drive all around the Wellington peninsula. I think I described the harbor once as like an upside down J. The peninsula is more like an H, with Wellington actually on the outside of the left line. The horizontal line is where the airport is, and that land only rose up above sea level in a large earthquake about a hundred years ago. So we drove clockwise all around with the water to our left. You go through populated areas and then wild areas. Eventually, we got views of the South Island again. After maybe two hours of driving (slow and winding and many stops), when we reached the end of the road, we were able to turn back, drive straight north up the left of the H, and get home in about 15 minutes.

In the next post, I will write about all the intellectual and cultural activities of the last month.