There is a long held belief in New Zealand that when the Cabbage Tree flowers heavily then we should expect a long hot dry summer. If so then the extra water tank we installed may have been a very good idea.  see post

Cabbage Tree    Cordyline australis

Certainly this year the Cabbage Trees are spectacular, perhaps the best I have seen for many years.

The dozens of specimens around the village are all heavily in bloom

The blooms appear in very large clumps made up of long racemes of delicate white blossom, and are highly scented. I took a clump that had blown off into Iris, maybe to place in our guest sun room. But 10 minutes later we both decided that it was just too overpowering in a room and sadly it had to be evicted.

Garden varieties

Cordyline species are popular in gardens and we have a small C. indivsa in our own garden and there are several C. banksii about the village and on roadsides

Summer is Officially Here

And for once the Weather Gods are agreeing, with kayakers enjoying the high (for us) temperatures and calm sunny days.

The Trials of a Photographer

A source of quiet amusement for me are some of the photographers I take to Ulva. Long Lens are probably the biggest source of photographer frustration.

Although wonderful for open country, and reasonable static subjects,  our dense forest and generally very mobile birds makes for serious frustration … the *$#@!!  birds are too close ….. or  …. by the time I’ve found the bird in my lens it’s flown away.

The other issue is tripods. I remember once taking a very enthusiastic (foreign) amateur over for a 6 hour film and photography walk. Central … from my point of view anyway as I ended up carrying the darned thing…. was a whacking great tripod that weighed a ton. And I was told I didn’t have a clue when I suggested that light weight & flexibility was needed as by the time he got it that kit set up the subject in question would be three ridges away. And though I actually carried it all semi set up, even then by the time he got it actually organised the bird was long gone. He didn’t manage a single worthwhile shot, even though the birds were far better than normal. From memory we saw 14 or 15 of the 18 land species resident…….And he had stabilised lens.

So what do I use

My long lens is a  70/300mm, not as fast as I would like, but relatively light weight and not nearly as cumbersome as the faster models , and so easier to hold. And I use the fastest cards I can buy together with high speed burst mode, which with a digital camera means  hopefully one shot out of a sequence will be worthwhile.

Our New Family Member

Occasionally I am  faced with the situation of young birds which will not survive either because of inability of parents to care for them, or of an external danger to the nest.

My natural inclination is to bring them home and attempt to rear them. However the thought of Iris’s reaction is a significant brake on precipitous action. And also, how on earth do I teach a baby oystercatcher to be an oystercatcher

And last year 4 parakeet nestlings drowned in a heavy rain event which I should have foreseen Link to Post .

But, as I said Iris would really create if I did bring a young Oystercatcher, or a clutch of parakeet home to raise.

So you can imagine my surprise a week ago when she turned up with a baby thrush. It had obviously fallen out of it’s nest. but was otherwise unharmed. It took to hand feeding immediately  and seems quite happy in its cage. Initially we fed it moist cat food, but now we are feeding it slugs which Iris catches under “slug boards” in the vegetable garden … better than chemical control by far …. and it loves the worms we find in our compost bins. And I downloaded thrush song and we play this while feeding it and on and off during the day. But can it eat !!!!!, and every 20 minutes or so. I really feel sorry for thrush parents with several in the nest all demanding food.

But what I’m really looking forward to is seeing  Iris on her hands and knees prodding the lawn with her nose as she teaches it to find it’s own dinner, and running around flapping her arms during flight training.

On a more serious note it will graduate into our glasshouse when it has some idea of self feeding …. lots of worms there, and scope to practice flight skills. Then  we hope to release it into the wild with the other thrushes as soon as it can fend for itself.

…. Peter & Iris, Sails Ashore
11 View St,
Stewart Island,
[email protected]
www.sailsashore.co.nz

64 3 219 1151
0800 783 9278

Grey Warbler

Grey Warblers are quite common around the village and on Ulva, but for me at least very hard to find. They are enthusiastic songsters, but visually drab secretive little birds who never seem to sit still and also prefer the higher canopy. So enormously difficult to photograph. Around the village where we don’t have a high canopy they are easier to find, their colouration and secretiveness still frustrate me. I have been working around our garage and back lawn area the last couple of weeks and have been chasing one which frequents the tress above our back lawn…. unsuccessfully I might add. A few days ago I was entertained by a major punch up between two birds, one chasing for several minutes what I realised was an interloper. Now I hadn’t known that warblers were aggressively territorial, and the penny dropped.

Grey Warbler in song

So this morning I went out with my phone playing a warbler song I had recorded yonks ago…….. instant success. Within about 20 seconds I had an extremely agitated warbler dashing from branch to branch looking for whoever was on his (I presume his) patch.

Burst photography mode and 60 or 70 photos later I now have around 5 shots I can use.

Garden Prep.

Garden partially covered and shedding light rain

Today is overcast and a bit raw, with a light easterly. But we have had a few really lovely days, and so Iris & I took the opportunity to prep part of our vegetable garden. This involved digging out one of the compost bins and spreading over the winter pea straw garden cover, and then a couple of days later rotary hoeing it all and then covering it all with a black plastic cover. This keeps any rain off, and being black absorbs heat, warming the soil. We take it off in fine weather to encourage drying. Sails temps are quite high, at around 9.3 dec C, so hope to get the early potatoes planted soon.

Spring Daffodils

Spring Blooms

Although it is still winter, spring bulbs are starting to flower, giving us a taste of the spring just around the corner, and a couple of late winter Rhododendrons are adding to the garden colour.

Rhododendron cornubia

…. Peter & Iris, Sails Ashore
11 View St,
Stewart Island,
[email protected]
www.sailsashore.co.nz

64 3 219 1151
0800 783 9278

We are well through winter and while we have had some severe conditions at times,on the whole we look out at clear blue skies, a calm lake and snow topped mountains.

The Murchison Mountains from Te Anau

Although these are definitely the quiet months we are heartened by a steady flow of visitors to the town and fiords, and good forward bookings.This week’s news that the government has declined the proposed bus tunnel from Glenorchy to the Hollyford was received with much elation. Most of our community are very opposed to developments of this nature in our World Heritage National Park.

Wendy & Roger McQuillan
Dunluce B&B
128 Aparima Drive
Te Anau 9600
64 3 249 7715

In late April our daughter Anne went overseas to attend two conferences, with a trip to Spain in between. Rather than put Eddie …. her Border Terrier ….. into kennels she sent him down to us. Eddie is a well travelled little dog, having visited us with Anne several times before, and also flying with her down to Wanganui where Anne occasionally works. Rather than fly Eddie home when Anne returned Iris & I decided to spend a week in Auckland. This was seen as a great idea by Anne, who, suprise suprise, had  several days chores for us…. gardening for Iris, and handyman duties for me.

Island Comedy

As always we flew off the Island with Stewart Island Flights, the local operator. They use Britten Norman Islanders, a very capable twin engined 9 seater aircraft. The flight was pure Island comedy. Iris and I sat in the rear two seats, with  Eddie secured on our lap, In front of us was a local young mum with baby twins, one held by another local woman along side her. The next row up had the local nurse and alongside her was the young mums friend, holding the twins elder sister. In the next row forward was an expectant mum, with her two little dogs, The remaining seats with other locals. But also on the plane was a box of doves. So in total 9 adults, 3 babies, three small dogs and a box of doves.  Getting all this travelling circus aboard was something of a project, and there were several comments regarding what any tourist would have thought had they been travelling.. but for the pilot, just another day at the office, and for us, just what makes Island life different.

But it wasn’t all work, among other things we spent the Saturday on Waiheke Island. Anne hired a car and we circumnavigated the Island. The western end is just a suburb of Auckland, but the eastern end is mostly farmland, and although not much of the Islands native bush remains, it is very pretty. We had lunch at Man ‘o War Bay Vinyard, a panini accompanied by a superb Red… Dreadnaught, if I remember correctly.

Leaving the Island means we have to organise care for our own two Borders, Millie & Bridie, and for our cantankerous cat who by the way enjoys the very original name(s) of Kit the Cat, or Mog. In the past we had sent them to kennels in Invercargill. But they hated it and invariably came home with snuffles and sneezes. So this year we asked a friend to come across and house sit our fur children.

We have known Lee for ever, and she and Anne are great friends, And as Lee spent a lot of her childhood on the Island she leapt at the chance to kick back and visit with old friends. We didn’t tell her too much about our odd animals, thought it would be an interesting learning curve for her.

As you might see from the email we received

Dear Mum and Dad and Anne
 
we hope that you got to Auckland ok. Kitty and I have been very good, but Bridie not so much, she must miss you.

Yesterday when Lee was trying to work with her computer on her lap, me, Bridie and Kitty tried to all get on her lap at once. Lee had to work at the table instead, because there wasn’t any room for all of us.
 
When Lee was having a sleep yesterday in the afternoon, Bridie woke her up barking. We still don’t know what she wanted because she didn’t want to go outside. Lee went to sleep in the window seat instead.
 
I have decided that I don’t want to sleep in your room, I just sit at the door, so Lee bought my bed out and I am sleeping in the lounge.
 
Bridie barked during the night, so Lee got up and let us out. When she was trying to get us to go outside for our nightly business we wouldn’t go. We both looked at her with doeful -‘ its to cold out there eyes’, and she fell for it. HAHAHAHA. So we woke her up when it suited us. I think we are very clever.
 
Once we had been out (I had a good look round the place in the dark in case anything had been going on) I was out there for ages, Lee was worried, we came back inside and Lee left the TV on for us to watch, because she was worried, we missed the company. But we didn’t make anymore noise, so she figured out now that we just wanted out.
 
She told us she is not falling for that again tonight. 
 
We went for a walk this morning, but we were so excited we barked and barked and barked (it was Bridie) that Lee kept walking us up and down the drive until we stopped, every time we got near the end of the drive and started barking again she turned us round and walked us back again. We are pretty clever so after doing this for ages we got the idea she wasn’t having any barking when we go walkies. So by the time we got out of the drive I was almost tired. We had a nice walk to Watercress bay and back. I did not chase any dogs, people or cars, because we didn’t see any.
 
Lee forgot to take a poo bag, but it was all good, because she didn’t feed us until we got home!
 We hope she never eats pumpkin ever because we really like it, we had it for tea and some more for breakfast as well.
 
Kitty seems to like Lee a lot, follows her round and won’t get off her lap so we can have a turn. Lee had to put her in her dog kennel yesterday afternoon so that she would leave her alone. Of course we sat under her cage in case she through some food out for us. Kitty also likes it that Eddie has gone home to his mum too.
Anyway, Bridie is in my basket, but I don’t care right now, because I’m going outside to check the mail again.
 
Have a good trip.
 
Woof woof
 Milly, Bridie and Kitty.

Coming South

Instead of flying from Invercargill we took our van (which we send across to the mainland every 2 years for maintenance) up to Queenstown and flew north from there. While we were away the Island weather was terrible, easterly and cold rain, and the day we were due to fly south a major Southerly storm was forecast. It arrived at Q’town just as we landed, and

we awoke next morning at Lake Hayes to a thin covering of snow, maybe 10 mm. But going over to Arrowtown we found 10 times that, and snowing heavily, but nothing back at Lake Hayes. The trip down to Invercargill on Friday was a bit of an adventure. The road was open just, with care, and we drove through heavy snow falling, half a metre on the fields. The graders and grit trucks were busy and we got through OK, although from halfway down the Lake to Lumsden at

just 40 kph.

Snow is not something we get a lot of on Stewart Island, maybe one fall of a few millimetres  once a year is generally our lot. Something I am very grateful for, as I loath the stuff. A spell or two snow raking as a young fellow cured me of any illusions about snow. Although I will admit it does look very pretty, but only when seen through double glazing accompanied by a roaring fire and a large mug of mulled wine.

Border Terriers

Anyone who has stayed with us will remember our two Borders…. it must be a Tait thing, as our son Ivan has a Border as well. Like all pets they rule our lives, and Bridie in particular is a “pataholic” and demands endless pats and attention. Millie is much more a couch potato, but having been a breeding bitch before she was retired to us I suppose she is allowed. Millies favourite occupation is watching the world go by.  Eddie on the other hand is an exercise freak, or at least is with Anne, and they will generally walk several K’s per day. However we do find while down here he seldom surfaces before 0900, and is looking for his bed around dinner time.

…. Peter & Iris, Sails Ashore
11 View St,
Stewart Island,
[email protected]
www.sailsashore.co.nz
64 3 219 1151
0800 783 9278