Wildlife March 2011

[Natalia]

In the southern hemisphere - the beautiful butterflies, but in our area ...

Winter does not want to retreat ... but spring is near


Please forgive me - I do not know the English names of birds, so I am latin.

[Maren]

Great photos, Natalia,

the Bohemian Waxwing, all puffed up with its crest raised looks as if he can look after himself. We don't see these in England. The Fieldfare is is more numerous, but it doesn't usually pose so beautifully to have its picture taken. - Thank you for showing these.

[Stephenb]

I was out cross-country skiing at the weekend and suddenly I heard a sound that I had been waiting to hear for some 30 years - a Pygmy Owl singing/displaying from the very top of a Norway Spruce tree! Pygmy Owl is tiny, the size of a Bullfinch! Fantastic! This Youtube video is close to what I experienced.....

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbYYm-LFY9s&feature=related[/youtube]

[Gail]

That's amazing Stephen - and I thought our little owls were cute...

[RichardW]

great shots of Waxwings, seen lots this year due to a big influx.

Male Siskin on my feeder this morning.

[mark smyth]

Oh yes we do, Maren. I saw about 50 on Sunday.

[Natalia]

Maren, thank you:)
 In our gardens now is not present Bohemian Waxwing - they have departed to the south. Because of summer heat in 2010 of a forage it is not enough.
 These photos are made on 200 km to the southwest from my city.

Siskins have not yet arrived to us .

[mark smyth]

Pygmy Owl is tiny, the size of a Bullfinch! Fantastic!

sounds like a bullie also

[Stephenb]

Pygmy Owl is tiny, the size of a Bullfinch! Fantastic!

sounds like a bullie also

So some claim, although not possible to mistake to my ears... Really, it was an owl not a bullfinch, honest!

[mark smyth]

Something for those in to birds
http://www.eilatbirdsfestival.com/festival%20packages.html

[David Lyttle]

[/quote]

The butterfly life is poor here. I've only seen a couple of yellow admirals (Bassaris itea) and one red (B. gonerilla). Our garden (until Monday) has no nectar (or any other for that matter) flowers in it. Just lemon, tangerine, macadamia, puriri, pohutukawa, magnolia and other trees. I'll try to take pics of the little blue (Zizina labradus), which is common and seems to have benefited from the introduction of leguminous weeds from the UK. A well as dead possums we must have killed dozens of small whites (Pieris rapae) which at times were so common on our journey as to resemble snow! The only other butterflies I've seen so far are the Common Copper (Lycaena salustius) at Piha west of Auckland and the Blue Moon (Hypolimna bolina) at Kerikeri.
[/quote]

Anthony,

Red and yellow admirals are common in my garden here in Dunedin. The preferred host plant for the red admiral is the native nettle Urtica ferox which has not gained a lot of popularity as a garden plant despite being the runner up for New Zealand's favourite plant for 2010.  Yellow admiral caterpillars are happy on the introduced nettle Urtica urens which I can grow well without any effort on my part. Hebe speciosa and its hybrids are good nectar sources for the adults. According to some authorities there are > 20 species of coppers (Lycaena). The host plant for this genus is Muehlenbeckia of which there are several species M. australis, M. complexa and M axillaris. M. australis is an aggressive native vine naturally found on forest margins and paradoxically becoming increasingly rare in the major urban areas as managers of forest reserves usually remove it. Coppers can be quite common where there is an abundance of Muehlenbeckia. Here is a picture of a local species of copper butterfly - I dont think it has a name yet,

[mark smyth]

Nice butterfly, David

Only 6 weeks and swifts will be back from Africa.

somewhere in Europe
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suKbhDkQ1k0&feature=related[/youtube]

[RichardW]

I wish we had better/more reliable summers  few years ago the borders at work were full of all sorts of butterflies, lots of Hair-streaks that I hadn't seen before, and Clouded Yellows passing through which were the most amazing colour.

last year was bad again but did see the first Silver Washed Fritillary in the garden.

really must get my boss to put some swift boxes up.

[mark smyth]

Richard swift boxes are very easy to make and put together. Your local wood yard will cut out what you need

[RichardW]

I'm a whiz with a Jigsaw 

have been making Owl boxes for a long time, the problem is my boss is anti putting anything on his properties, I wanted to stick some artificial House Martin nests up but he wasn't keen on them.