Mr. Munro and I live in a fairly new subdivision with lots of new houses and there’s not much in the way of established vegetation. The company who subdivided the farmland has planted lots of trees and made ponds - well, not the company but the people who work for the company! On one of our daily dog-walk excursions last week we were talking about how many native birds are turning up. Every weekend we’re woken up by enthusiastic thrushes (these aren’t native) who don’t seem to know the meaning of sleeping late!
This morning when we walked past one of the ponds there was this huge white bird feeding on the edge of the pond. A heron, we decided. We have lots of grey herons but hadn’t seen one like this before. Mr Munro took a photo with his cellphone and we went back later with the digital camera but it was gone. The photo is zoomed in, but you can see it’s a big white bird.
We’ve decided it was a white heron or kotuku and they’re actually very rare. It was a lucky sighting and made our day.
It’s so nice to have ponds that close to where you live. There is lots of water near us, but far enough away that we can’t get to it easily. The only birds I’ve seen around my place has been crows.
by Christine d'Abo July 15th, 2007 at 9:27 amWe’re lucky here in New Zealand because not matter where we live we’re not far from a beach as well. The local kids love to go to the ponds to feed the ducks and sometimes to fish. They’re a hive of activity during a nice day.
by Shelley Munro July 15th, 2007 at 12:42 pm