Tui raids and clematis

My new smartphone may be a step forward in technology but using it as a wifi hotspot, and connecting it to a Bluetooth handset, uses battery at an eye-watering rate. Instead of encouraging me to explore its new features, I'm afraid I've rejected its wasteful use of power and now pick up a book rather than get online to write blogs!

My time for catching up on section work will be harder now as the island winds up for its summer season. Most of our visitors come between Labour Weekend (October) to Easter (late March/April); some to tramp the Rakiura Track Great Walk, a number will be cruise ship day visitors, the crib-owners will be down for their summer holidays and lots of tourists come to discover one of New Zealand's best kept secrets. I know I'm biased but there's not many places in New Zealand where you see two tui raids, flowering native clematis and kiwi footprints - all in the 15 minute walk to work this morning!

Wonderful clumps of native clematis flowering throughout the bush

Can you spot the flowering clematis across the valley?

Tui raids are amazing and well worth making the trip here in October, despite the changeable weather. Tui get very possessive of 'their' food trees (mostly the native fuchsia) and guard them jealousy - woe betide any bird that comes in for a nibble. But when tui band together in flocks of 100 or more, the resident pair have no show of protecting their tree. The only sounds you hear are the beating of wings and occasionally a mewing (?crying) noise from the tui trying to fend them off. With fuchsia trees either side of Main Road, often I'll get caught in the flock flying across the road - I put some video up last year in this blog.

Spring is also orchid time; the chiloglottis orchids are starting to push through the soil but I've yet to see a greenhood orchid flower so far, they're much later than last year. There are lots of spider orchids around and lots of green spikes which will be flowering sun orchids in a couple of months.

Small Chiloglottis cornuta orchids pushing through

Close-up of chiloglottis orchid leaves - the flower will come later

These fungi are found in the same patch as the chiloglottis orchids - I
wonder if they are symbiotic?

Deer be gone!

I posted my last blog hoping that the whitetail deer didn't get sick from nibbling the potato leaves. The next morning I woke to find that they had returned during the night and had feasted on what was left - I'm now wondering how I can free up space in the freezer for 4 young ones!

I have rigged up a fence and hope that there's enough stem to keep the spuds growing in the bags - fingers crossed.

It was raining early yesterday morning so a good excuse to grab my camera and look around for things to photograph. First up were these two spiders by the ranchslider - is it a male and female or is it one spider capturing another? I think it's one for NatureWatch.

Not sure what the 'bubble' is on the smaller spider

Next up was the woodshed. I've been watching a ?puffball fungi over the last week. Here it is on 22 February...

White ?puffball on the right, orange slime mould on the left



A lumpy white thing!

Close-up of the edge - nothing particularly distinctive

Close-up of the orange slime mould

 A week later...

Full of a brown powdery substance - ?spores

The orange mould has dried up but here's some other slime moulds on the stump

The Chiloglottis cornuta orchid has finished flowering and its stem has suddenly shot up - I presume this is to spread its seed over a wider area.

 

The flower stems are usually down near the ground but shoot up as
the ovary matures

Close-up of the flower head and swollen ovary



Other summer flowering orchids

The sun orchids are the most visible of the summer flowering orchids but if you look closely then you'll see a number of other orchids including these Aporostylis or odd-leaved orchid.


A clump of Aporostylis bifolia - a small orchid with one large and one
small leaf

There's a colony of Chiloglottis cornuta, or green bird orchid, on my boundary track - it's in a dense clump about a metre square...

Another interesting orchid are the two species of Microtis or onion orchid. Microtis oligantha is small with a few sparse flowers; Microtis unifolia is much larger (15-35cm) with many flowers crammed together. I have many Microtis unifolia growing amongst the grass and always feel guilty when I get them when cutting the grass.

Microtis unifolia

There are still a few Pterostylis (greenhood orchids) in flower - I saw this beauty the other day...

...but most of the early flowering orchids have shrivelled flowers and swelling ovaries like this spider orchid...

After a week or so, the swollen ovary gets pushed up high as the stem grows - I wonder if this is so the seed is spread as far as possible?

Elongated stem on left hand side

Late Spring orchid update

Visitors, a new job and unseasonal weather have curtailed my orchid watching lately. The early-flowering spider orchid flowers are starting to shrivel but that's offset by the summer-flowering orchids like Thelymitra sending up their flower spikes. They could well turn tail and burrow back into the ground after a cold snap sent us back into winter again! We've had a couple of sunny days in December which everyone appreciated - here's the view of Halfmoon Bay from a friend's house a week ago.

The Chiloglottis (Green bird) orchids have started flowering but I'll have to wait for a sunny day to get some better photos of their fascinating structure.

Chiloglottis cornuta

The greenhood orchids continue to delight with their variety and long-flowering season.

Pterostylis, greenhood orchids

The Earina mucronata (bamboo orchid) clump I'd been watching eventually flowered mid-November and it's another one that needs a brighter light to get the best photos - maybe next Spring will be sunnier.



Earina mucronata, bamboo orchid

Close-up of bamboo orchid flower

Bush canopy in the sunshine

Mare's tail clouds heralding windy weather ahead

Last, but not least are some pics of the beautiful spider orchids...

Orchids at home - early November

What a busy month! I'm sorry for the break in blogging but hope my adventures in the second half of the month will make up for it. Whilst I process over 500 photos from that, I'll pop up these early November pics of orchids and fungi from around my boundary track.

Earina mucronata (Bamboo orchid) spikes - not quite opened

A clump of Spider orchids

Close-up of Spider orchid

Another Spider orchid - this one with extra long
lateral sepals and petals

Spider orchids by the dozens

Chiloglottis cornuta - not quite open

My Chiloglottis corner - more than 100 covering a 2sq m patch

I'll have to study the spider orchids in greater detail to find the difference between Corybas, Singularybas and Nematoceras - my understanding is that they are all slightly different forms of Corybas but I could very well be wrong!!

I came across three white fungi as I walked around; again, studying fungal forms could be a fulltime job in itself - I so love the diversity of our beautiful world...