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Showing posts from April, 2018

Andrew: White-Faced Heron

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Hello. this bird info post is about the White-Faced Heron. This bird is known by many different names such as the blue crane, or the blue heron. This bird is the most common Heron in New Zealand and the numbers are incredible on Stewart Island (they`re just very good at hide and seek). They are a medium sized heron and have blue-grey plumage. They, as the name suggests, have a white face and a small portion of the neck is white as well. They appear in Australia, New Guinea and, of course, New Zealand. This is one of the most common large birds in New Zealand. They usually breed at the top of trees where they lay and incubate 3-5 eggs. Egg laying usually peaks at the end of October. The egg incubation takes up to 27 days. They eat a wide range of food such as frogs, tadpoles, fish, crabs, insects, etc and they can adapt well to almost any environment. This species does very well because their eggs can`t be eaten by rats or stoats (but the rats and stoats do not want to mess with a l...

Lachlan: The luge and gondola

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Hello! Today I am talking about my trip on the luge and gondola. The luge is basically a kart that you sit in and sort of drive but I'm not even sixteen yet - I'm nowhere near sixteen so I don't think I should be allowed to drive the luge ... I crashed a lot. So it started off in the world's longest line to go on the gondola. Another random thing is that it would have basically taken a day to get on the gondola. So at the end when we made it to the gondola we went up a mountain and saw super cute goats at the middle of the mountain. At the top we found another huge line to go on the chairlift. Then once we made it up the chairlift we found another huge line to get on the luge. Once we finished waiting in the line we finally got into our luge karts and we all raced each other until the final two rides because everyone else went on the red track. I wasn't allowed on the red track because I am not 130cm tall.

Andrew:Takahe

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Hello, this post is about a special bird called the Takahe. This bird is endangered and has under 150 left in the world. I saw this bird at the Te Anau bird sanctuary where we decided to take some photos. This large flightless bird is a member of the rail family of birds and is about the size of a very large hen. They are the largest member of the rail family. This bird likes to eat the leaf base and other parts of the tussock or other grasses, yet they do eat invertebrates, mainly during the chick rearing session. This bird has the most of its numbers at the Fiordland, Te Anau bird sanctuary. Strangely this flightless bird has wings for showing off to its mate. It was thought to be extinct from 1898 to 1948 until it was rediscovered with barely any population. For the last 70 years we have made various conservation efforts and most are working. Slowly but surely their numbers are growing. Here are some pictures I took of this rare and endangered bird.   I hope you enjoyed th...

Kristen: Car travel with these guys

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There's nothing quite like enforced time in a small space to remind you of your children's strengths.  Jess is our songbird, with an amazing memory for all the songs on our playlists. When the going gets tough, Jess gets singing - and when it gets really rough, she gets the boys singing as well. Andy is our most self contained traveller. He keeps himself to himself and usually has his nose in his Kindle or phone, unless somebody spots a potential new bird ... then the camera comes out ready for action. Lachie is so brave. He is not a happy traveller, and has been sick a couple of times but never complains when it's time to get back in the car. He spends more time staring at the view than the other children, so I think he's actually seeing more of New Zealand than the other two.