On a blustery day, last November, I was walking along Moeraki Beach with some friends when we came across dozens of these strange black things. They are colloquially called Mermaid’s purses, which doesn’t give much clue as to their real identity. But my friends guessed they’d be shark or ray eggs. So I posted them on iNaturalist to find out. We discovered that the first two images are the egg cases of Elephant fish, also known as Elephant sharks or Australian ghost sharks. And the third one, is the egg case of a Carpet shark. iNaturalist is a great tool for identifying living things. Scien ..read more

Lichens are everywhere, often blending in to their surrounds. It's so easy to ignore them. But recently, I had half an hour to do a street loop walk near my house. As it was a walk I’d done so many times before, I sought inspiration to motivate me to get out the door. I quickly opened Annabel Streets 52 Ways to Walk at random. In the very last chapter, she writes about deep walking, and looking for fractals. That, I thought, I could do. “In the cracks of pavements, in the fissured bark of fallen trees, under the thin skin of the earth, we can find entire universes.” — Annabel Streets, 52 Ways ..read more

The heart of In the Bush: explore and discover New Zealand’s native forests is a tall rimu showing that a single large tree is an ecosystem of animals and plants. It’s distressing to hear in the news that some protected trees have been illegally logged. But also equally sad to hear people espousing, as I once heard on Country Calendar, the view that a large tree should be ‘extracted’ from the forest before it gets to rot. As if the hollowing and rotting is somehow bad, and not a whole new set of habitats and services to the forest. It was that which inspired the following poem. The logger He t ..read more

Autumn might be the best time of year for finding fungi, but since summer I’ve been on the lookout for bizarre fungi with a rather horrible history. Cicada infected by a fungus It all started back in February when a friend pointed out some white fungus sprouting out of the ground, like little trees. See below: Cordyceps sinclairii I’d heard of fungi that attacked insects. But seeing any seemed a remote possibility - wasn’t that the stuff of TV nature documentaries? Well no, it seems they’re common enough if you only know what to look for. Cordyceps sinclairii (in the photo above) infects the ..read more

Puawhananga Clematis Paniculata One of the exciting signs of spring in the New Zealand bush are the star-like flowers of the clematis vine Clematis paniculata or puawhananga. According to one reference I found, Māori legend says pua wānanga or puawhananga is the child of two stars - of autumn and summer - so heralding the spring. Another reference says the name means ‘the flower of the skies’. Such beautiful images for a beautiful flower. If you are in the bush you might be lucky enough to spot a galaxy of these large but delicate flowers. They're usually high in the canopy but on the bush ed ..read more

Ruru in my garden A few weeks ago I heard a commotion in the garden - the blackbirds were complaining, it sounded like they were giving another bird a good telling off. I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. That's when I saw a ruru sitting on a branch having its daytime nap. The owl didn't seem at all bothered by the blackbirds and eventually they gave up and moved into another part of the garden.  I've heard ruru or morepork at night - their distinctive call echoes in the gully nearby - but I never imagined they might be hunting in our garden. These owls hunt wētā, moths, cic ..read more

  Two of my haiku were published in a fine line Spring 2021, the magazine of the New Zealand Poetry Society.  About haiku Maybe you learned to write haiku at school and were told haiku were poems of three lines with 5 -7 -5 syllables. Today haiku can be 2 or 3 lines and are almost always less than 17 syllables. Haiku use strong images to convey the essence of a moment in nature. Notes: Krummholz is a word that English language has borrowed from German to mean a tree that is stunted, bent or twisted. It wasn't that easy finding photos th ..read more

Beachcombers, Pukerua Bay We trawl along the shoreOur nets are tightly woven bags We comb the pebbles and rocks Seeking bright reds and oranges anything shiny, glinting, perfectly rounded blues, shards of bright white. We lean closer, Poke through the tangled seaweed Searching out  tightly coiled greens, odd shapes broken things.  Gifts of the sea. Pearly fragments of iridescent shell Catch my eye I pick them up, examine them, return them. They’re not for today’s catch of Coca Cola cans milk bottle tops lolly sticks discarded balls of fishing line a left-foot jandal ..read more

Mention ocean-going birds and the mighty long-winged albatross comes to mind. But the ball of fluff I hold in my hands is no heavier than a pompom and not much larger.  White-faced storm petrel chick Weighing in at just 40-50 grams, white-faced storm petrels are a small miracle. The chick is so tiny, so delicate. But when I loosen my hold, the Jesus Christ bird rockets out, its long legs springing it off into the bushes. Once fledged this bird will be walking on water, its long legs and webbed feet bounding across the waves. For now though, I must wrangle it safely back into its ..read more

Reef heron from 2019 Reef Heron The smooth grey rock on the jagged shore lifts up separates from the shadows two legs stalk head darts beak breaks the mirror surface of the pool  reef heron snaps and swallows becomes rock again. Yesterday I was down at Pukerua Bay beach, the water was glassy blue and the rocks dark shadows. I watched as a rock changed shape, became a reef heron, snapped some food and settled back again into it's rock-like posture. I'm having fun writing nature poetry ..read more