On the Road and In Your Backyard

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.

You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.

For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

After such a horrible weekend,  I know we can all use some nice pictures. I’ll be catching up on lots of the emailed submissions; because of family reasons later this week, I’ll be scheduling Thursday, Friday, and next Monday (at minimum) off of them.

 

Today, pictures from valued commenter Albatrossity.

My in-laws live in New Zealand, which means that we have a good reason to go visit them occasionally over our Christmas break (which is high summer there). Here are some pics from various trips. Before the Maori arrived there, NZ was a bird paradise. No land mammals other than three species of bats, so birds filled all the ecological niches. The arrival of Maori (with accompanying rats) and Europeans (who deliberately introduced rabbits, possums, cats, dogs, and even stoats) meant that many ground-nesting, unwary, flightless bird species disappeared, often quite rapidly. But it is still a bird paradise for us northerners; seabirds are abundant, and the conservation efforts to maintain populations of the endangered landbirds are working in many cases.

The Southern Alps.

Taken on 2015-12-01

On the way from Christchurch, via Arthur’s Pass, to the west coast of the South Island. Someone once joked that you can drop your camera and it would take a great scenery pic on the South Island, and that’s not far from the truth. Stunning vistas are abundant

Buller’s Albatross

Taken on 2015-12-27

Near Stewart Island, south of the South Island.

Long boat trips are usually needed in order to see albatrosses, like this Buller’s Albatross; they hang out in deep water and nest on remote islands. In NZ, the deep water is often very close to shore, and you are closer to those remote islands, so sightings of albatrosses (and petrels and penguins and other pelagic birds) are possible with just s short boat trip from many of the ports.

North Island Saddleback

Taken on 2016-01-09

Tiritiri Matangi Island, accessible via a short boat trip from Auckland (North Island)

The two species of saddlebacks (North Island and South Island) were pretty much decimated by nest predators and habitat loss. They hung on in some of the smaller pest-free islands, and are now coming back under strong protection and management.

Royal Spoonbills

Taken on 2016-01-02

Okarito Lagoon (west coast of South Island)

These large wading birds are also found in Australia. One of them was having a bad hair day. From a boat in the Okarito Lagoon, a large estuary near the very small and picturesque village of Okarito. This is the only breeding site for the Kotuku, or Great White Heron.

Kotuku

Taken on 2016-01-02

Okarito Lagoon (west coast of South Island)

Great White Heron, probably the same species that we have here in North America, but there are some plumage and other differences, so the NZ ornithologists prefer to split this one out and call it a separate species

Fantail

Taken on 2016-01-07

Neara Auckland (North Island)

A small active forest bird, the Fantail is found throughout the country. It flashes its tail to startle insects so that it can eat them, and it is indeed startling to see!

Kaka (yes, that’s its real name)

Taken on 2015-12-26

Stewart Island

A medium-sized parrot formerly found throughout NZ, the Kaka went through a significant population decline after the Europeans arrived. Now making a comeback.

 

Thank you so much Albatrossity, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email