Ngirungiru video

It was wet on Sunday so a good excuse to play with Microsoft Movie Maker and see if I could cut down 250Mb of video into something more manageable for posting. Fingers crossed that this 8Mb video clip works!

I get a lot of enjoyment watching his antics; the seat outside is getting spottier by the day and he spends a lot of his time either looking through the window or checking out his reflection. He'll often swoop down when I'm getting firewood or checking the traps around the house and usually greets me with his whistle.

There's a lot of other small birds around at present; I'm wondering if it's because of the woodpiles around harbouring more insects. I was entertained by 3 piwakawaka (fantails) dancing around catching insects and a small flock of tauhou (waxeye/silvereye) were checking out the back of the house this morning. There's usually birdsong most of the time here so it was noticeable when it suddenly got very quiet - I looked up and kahu (swamp or Australasian harrier) was patrolling the skies - hopefully for rats rather than my little feathered friends!

Another visitor was a lot smaller but just as welcome; a wee fruit fly lookalike was by the ranchslider and posed patiently for me whilst I took photos. It wasn't until I downloaded the pics from the camera that I noticed how unusual the markings and shape of its abdomen. It wasn't up on NatureWatch for long before an eagle-eyed Stephen identified it as a possible undescribed species of Prosochaeta. I can't find much information on this native species but Stephen has a fab photo of a similar one here.

Return of the ngirungiru

When I first moved here in January 2011 I was entertained by a male ngirungiru (tomtit) who sat on the seat outside the ranchslider and watched me through the glass (see blogs in Feb and March 2011). He'd call out early in the morning and would swoop down to watch me working in the garden. I think he was just a young-un as he had a smudgy yellow breast and maybe he was feeling lonely after leaving the nest. I don't feed the birds so our interaction wasn't prompted by food - it seemed a genuine curiosity on both our parts. Although there are a number of ngirungiru around here, I hadn't had another curious fledgling until now - no doubt the older ones are too busy building nests and feeding young to have time on their hands!

So it was with great delight to have another wee, smudgy-breasted bird take an interest in what I'm doing. The wooden seat outside the ranchslider is spotted with bird poo, testament to the number of hours he sits on it looking through the ranchslider. Another favoured place is the stainless steel rubbish bin underneath the outside table; I'm sure he's looking to play with the bird that appears when he flies down to it and he spends ages 'cheeping' at his reflection and looks quite stunned when he flutters up to the top and finds the 'bird' has disappeared. I spent a lot of my three day weekend being entertained by his antics; here's some photos and I'll put up some video footage when I get time to do some editing.

He has a number of calls; the cheeping that he does to his reflection, an 'oyly-oyly' warble and also 3-5 loud whistles. He's often answered by other ngirungiru - I wonder if they are his parents/siblings. Maybe his Dad has told him stories about his youth and about the strange woman who talked to him and he's just checking it out for himself!