Elegy for the Weka (Woodhen)

Unbridled your curiosity and with a

propensity to annex anything moveable,

I salute you Weka, synonym for a thief.

Crafty and impudent, what does it take for a

flightless bird to survive against the odds, to survive

hoons, lazing on verandas in the summer heat,

using you for target practice: and Lady Barker, -

“They run quickly, availing themselves of the

least bit of cover, but when you hear a short,

sharp cry, it is a sign that the poor Weka is

nearly done and the next thing you see is Fly

shaking a bundle of brown feathers vehemently.

All the dogs are trained to hunt these birds, as they are

a great torment, sucking eggs and killing chickens.”

Comments

Tunnel-web spiders and golden hunting wasps

My wildlife experiences these days are pretty much confined to my backyard and a daily ramble around the village of Greytown, New Zealand. During my daily walks, it is the birds which attract my attention: skylarks, (“Hail to thee, blithe spirit”), goldfinches, (“gaillard he was as a goldfynch in the shawe”), black birds, (“shouting all day at nothing in leafy dells alone”), the song thrush, greenfinch, chaffinch, dunnock, california quail, house sparrow, eastern rosella, Australian magpie, starling, yellowhammer –foreigners all. Most of them were introduced in the nineteenth century as bio-agents to control plagues of insects brought about by the wholesale destruction of the bush and the consequential severe disruption of the eco-system. I welcome them all, knowing that in the not too distant future we may be lucky to see any bird at all. I do see the odd native bird; kotare, the kingfisher, pipiwharauroa, the shining cuckoo and its dupe riro, the greywarbl

Of Aphis and Ants, the end of the anthropocene

Marta had been awoken as usual by their antennae softly stroking her on the inner wrist. They seemed to wait until they were sure she was awake before crawling up her arm. They stroked her arm again just inside the elbow. She suspected they were administering a local anaesthetic. She waited with the usual sense of dread for the tiny pin pricks as they probed. There were always just three of them. Were they the same three ants every day? She couldn't tell. They were on the large size for ants, but ants they were, although their proboscides was more mosquito like than that of any ant. It was over in a few minutes. They waddled off with the bags inside their legs full of her blood. They disappeared under the door. There was no keeping them out. They could fire off acid to dissolve any lock, any door, and leave humans a pulpy heap if they resisted or tried to fight back. They always made Marta think of the ants on the rose bushes she observed as a child, herding and milking

Butterflies

Having developed the habit of watching out for birds, then one is also likely to observe those other beautiful creatures on the wing, butterflies. The Monarch butterflies are hard to miss as they float about our gardens, alighting on some flower or leaf, giving us time to observe and admire. They are just so voluptuous drifting about the garden before being carried off like any baggage by some male to keep sequestered. Our own endemic butterflies, the red and yellow admirals, however, are likely to be missed as they flit very quickly away before one has a chance to observe their beautiful colouring, the patterns of yellow and the red on black. Gibbs, the grandson of our most illustrious entomologist G.V. Hudson, claims the Monarch is a native, having got here under its own steam, following the plantings of the milkweeds by missionaries across the Pacific Islands. However, with their legendary ability to fly over enormous distances, they may well have arrived in NZ somwhat ea

Greytown county almanac

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