Jon Sullivan

Kia ora! I'm a #nature nut, addict of #iNaturalist NZ — Mātaki Taiao, and an #ecologist at #LincolnUniversity in #Aotearoa-#NewZealand.

I spend an inordinate amount of my time counting nature to watch what's changing (see https://wildcounts.org/).

#TwitterMigration #NZTwits #ecology #EcologicalMonitoring #NaturalHistory #iNaturalistNZ #iNaturalist #wildcounts #RStats #Biodiversity

Born when there was 326 ppm carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

WildCounts: https://wildcounts.org/
iNaturalist: https://inaturalist.nz/people/jon_sullivan
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/mollivan_jon/

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Published at

2026-05-31T13:22:48Z

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Last Notes

2026-04-23 08:21:05 UTC

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Participating cities in the City Nature Challenge often run fun free public events. That’s the case where I am in Ōtautahi-Christchurch, New Zealand. See the link below for the list of all our events. (I’m leading a nature walk on Sunday from the Sign of the Takahe in the city’s Port Hills down to the Botanic Gardens.)
To find out what’s happening in your city, search for your city’s City Nature Challenge project page on #iNaturalist
https://ccc.govt.nz/news-and-events/whats-on/programme/146
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=City+nature+challenge
#CNC2026

2026-04-23 08:16:19 UTC

The global City Nature Challenge starts at midnight on 23 April, which here in New Zealand is now less than four hours away.
If you’re new to the City Nature Challenge, it’s four days of observing nature, in hundreds of cities around the world. That’s followed by two weeks of uploading photos and identifying species on #iNaturalist.
It’s a great way to get together with others and have some fun exploring your city and seeing what wild species you can find.
https://www.inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2026
https://www.inaturalist.nz/projects/city-nature-challenge-2026-aotearoa-new-zealand
#CityNatureChallenge #CNC2026

2026-04-11 06:40:54 UTC

Of the flies I saw today, this one is my favourite. It's the ngaro tara or three-lined Hover Fly (*Helophilus seelandicus*), a New Zealand endemic species.
I like the sleek colour pattern. It would not look out of place on a coverable sports car.
While the adult is sleek, the larva is a rat-tailed maggot with a long snorkle out its rear end that allows it to eat decomposing matter in stagnant water.
I saw this while on my weekly biodiversity run this afternoon through Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ.
https://www.inaturalist.nz/observations/348889144
#diptera #flies #entomology #nz #Syrphidae #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #iNaturalist
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/384/658/187/281/426/original/549a43ec8258a22f.jpg

2026-04-10 08:39:25 UTC

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Mark Avery also has a good summary of this new bird feeder advice.
https://markavery.info/2026/04/10/garden-bird-feeding-new-rspb-advice/

2026-04-06 22:20:00 UTC

There's a new fly in town.
While out for a run yesterday, in Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ, I noticed this unusual orange-headed black fly. I uploaded my photos to #iNaturalist when I got home and learned that it's the Australian Soldier Fly, *Inopus rubriceps*. This looks to be the first record of it anywhere in the South Island south of Nelson.
The species is a minor pasture pest and is well-established in NZ's North Island, where it was first seen in 1944.
As the world warms, NZ continues to fill with Australian insects. They first establish in the North Island then spread southwards. The pattern is repeating over and over. In this case, the two Australian parasitoid wasps (Neurogalesus spp.) that feed on *Inopus rubriceps* have also already established in the North Island.
*Inopus rubriceps* is a distinctive fly, especially the female which has the orange head (the male is all black). Keep an eye out and you might find some more of them.
https://www.inaturalist.nz/observations/347771177
#Diptera #entomology #iNaturalistNZ #invasionBiology #insects #nz #Christchurch #fly
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/360/001/312/034/361/original/2f09c91ce562cc41.jpg

2026-04-05 22:33:50 UTC

It's that time again in Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ, when the fruit on the te kouka cabbage trees are at peak ripeness. That brings in the kererū to parts of the city.
Here are some of my photos of kererū eating te kouka fruit in the city from this long weekend. It includes what I think is the first time I've seen a kererū on Rose Street (that's on one of my fortnightly survey routes, which I've run since 2008).
https://www.inaturalist.nz/observations/347375376
#kererū #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #nz #birds #iNaturalistNZ #frugivory #UrbanEcology #nature
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/354/463/448/201/200/original/4b1213a1e33b7024.jpg
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/354/463/448/720/893/original/a388a195937a0186.jpg
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/354/463/458/122/921/original/b91c3ce5c3e9ef2b.jpg
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/354/463/521/834/841/original/57b56d54ded143a9.jpg

2026-04-02 09:01:31 UTC

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Interestingly, Forsythia flowers in New Zealand around Easter too, on the other end of the world. Down here Forsythia has a peak burst of flowering in Spring, before it leafs out, and then often has another smaller burst of flowering later in Autumn around Easter.
(It's planted here in gardens, and only sparingly wild, so far.)
Here are a couple of Forsythia I recently photographed flowering in gardens of Christchurch city, NZ.
https://www.inaturalist.nz/observations/346745745
https://www.inaturalist.nz/observations/346745747
#botany #flowers
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/334/287/473/681/754/original/985fba42cbeb0d72.jpg
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2026-04-02 07:24:09 UTC

Q+A's Jack Tame has a good interview with Rewiring Aotearoa’s Mike Casey on the need to quickly electrify NZ’s machines to run on New Zealand-made energy and ramp up rooftop solar. I like the way he pitches this as the clearly obvious and sensible solution, which it clearly and obviously is.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/03/29/fuel-price-blowouts-push-nz-towards-electrification-advocate/
#TVNZ #RenewableEnergy #NZ #JackTane

2026-03-12 10:02:47 UTC

I can get lost in moths. They're one of nature's art galleries.
Here's a close-up of the wings of NZ's Greater Alpine Grey (Ichneutica virescens).
You can zoom into the full-resolution version on Flickr at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mollivan_jon/55143236921/
See the whole moth on iNaturalist NZ at: https://www.inaturalist.nz/observations/342554964
#mothodon #Lepidoptera #moths #nz #photography #entomology
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/215/619/793/045/517/original/9c30108e6ab5cf4d.jpg

2026-03-05 08:16:51 UTC

Moth? Moth!
Here's the NZ endemic moth, the appropriately named Exquisite Carpet, *Asaphodes adonis*, which I just uploaded to #iNaturalist. It's known only from NZ's South Island.
It's always a treat to find these.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/341348871
#mothodon #moths #Lepidoptera #nz #entomology
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/175/573/324/726/061/original/3900a3d278a14844.jpg

2026-03-02 08:48:12 UTC

Here's a triangle that loomed in the sky as it approached Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ, yesterday morning.
Soon afterwards the blustery rainy cool weather arrived and stuck around for the next 24 hours.
https://flic.kr/p/2rZ9p6t
#photography #weather #nz #triangle #clouds
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/158/766/159/356/057/original/f008a1fd82c661bc.jpg

2026-02-23 23:54:21 UTC

I gave one of my first-year university lectures today, on biodiversity and extinction rates, in which I mention the recent population growth of the Earth's most abundant large animal species ever: us.
I still remain completely gobsmacked by the magnitude of the world's recent human population growth.
8.27 billion: today's population, according to worldometers.info.
7.2 billion: in 2015 when I started teaching the course.
6.8 billion: in 2008 when my daughter was born.
3.8 billion: in 1971 when I was born.
2.3 billion: in 1946 when my parents were born.
1.9 billion: in 1923 when my Dad’s Dad was born.
So 1.9 billion to 8.2 billion in just over a century!
I worry about whether we can sustain this many people on the planet long-term while retaining and restoring a thriving wild biosphere that supports us.
Some of us are going to have to learn to use a lot less energy and resources.
#SoManyPeople #HumanPopulation

2026-02-22 09:24:14 UTC

I like how the people of Ōtautahi-Christchurch have the habit of quietly placing flowers in the city's road cones to commemorate the people that died in the 2011 earthquake.
It is worth remembering how everyone in the city came together to help each other out after the quakes. That was the heart of the city right there.
#Ōtautahi #Christchurch #nz #earthquake #commemoration
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/113/542/417/397/397/original/00e20fd8db5ff3ee.jpg

2026-02-22 06:24:57 UTC

Today I was up in the Port Hills of Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ, swapping out some bird audio recorders.
Here are the views.
It is an excellent backyard for a city!
#Ōtautahi #Christchurch #NZ #scenery
My full-sized photos are on #Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mollivan_jon/55108241217/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mollivan_jon/55108221277/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mollivan_jon/55109107111/
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/112/825/052/954/729/original/e97b1f1c3c987398.jpg
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https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/112/825/056/991/553/original/4893da9f0a1a8bf3.jpg

2026-02-20 09:48:09 UTC

If you have to put up a sign asking cyclists to please use your shared pedestrian path, you've designed it wrong.
As a commuter cyclist, I want to get from point A to point B as fast as I can, without dying. Just like a car driver.
When given the option of riding on the road verge, or weaving in and out of people walking their dogs with headphones on and children walking to school and friends walking along chatting to each other, and giving way to cars at every little side road, then I choose the road verge. So do people on road bikes zipping past me at >30 km/hr.
I really like the separated cycleways that Christchurch city has built. They're safe and fast and well used.
I worry about the recent proliferation instead of "shared paths" in new road developments which combine cyclists with pedestrians and discourage bikes from being on the road at all.
Shared paths are useful for children on bikes, if we teach them how to ride around pedestrians, but they're impractical for an adult cyclist trying to travel 20–30 km/hr.
Please, let's keep investing in separated cycleways for cycle commuters. That's what will get more commuters out of cars, not shared paths.
#cycleways #bikeTooter #nz #biking
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/102/232/278/187/109/original/7ae0cbfdfd34a9e0.jpg

2026-02-13 09:17:06 UTC

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It struck me during Carl's talk that massive, general LLMs are yet another technology that, through the competitive haste of capitalism, we’ve unleashed globally without considering all of the likely effects on things we value (like social cohesion, functional democracies, and a healthy biosphere). As usual, we’ll now live through all these consequences and will scramble to undo the worst of the damage.
We’ve done the same with chlorofluorocarbons, DDT, acid rain, whaling, forever chemicals, cars,... It’s what we do, but every new global-scale technology is a gamble that it won’t irrevocably damage civilisation and the biosphere. Eventually we’re going to lose that gamble.
To drive a large, global high-tech civilisation for thousands of years, we have to learn to be *much* more restrained and future smart. Are we capable of that?
#SustainableFuture #UnintendedConsequences #LLM

2026-02-13 09:14:45 UTC

I went to a fantastic seminar today at the University of Canterbury by Carl Bergstrom ([@ct_bergstrom](https://fediscience.org/@ct_bergstrom )), titled “Information Foraging in a Social Media World.” Carl has been applying his knowledge of how information flows through ecological and evolutionary systems to better understand our digital information networks.
He views humans as fundamentally information foragers, and he compared the massive digital information network we’ve built to the excess of high calorie sweet and fatty foods. Neither are necessarily good for us in excess.
Information used to be hard to find and we spent a lot of our time processing it. Now we live with a hyper-abundance of information and we spend most of our time filtering information instead of processing it. Carl hinted that this ratio of filtering to processing differs between the generations, something that teachers need to consider.
He ended with LLMs, describing LLMs as fundamentally depersonalising, as they insert themselves between people in our digital information networks. He is also concerned about how easily LLMs can be used at scale to manipulate people, and communities of people, for commercial and political purposes.
In universities he sees the need for a radically trans-disciplinary crisis discipline focused on information. We quickly need to better understand, and anticipate, all the social changes that are happening.
It’s a lot to think about.

2026-02-08 03:10:27 UTC

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One of the most notable visitors to my moth light this past week turns out to not be a moth at all but instead is this kind of house fly. I've not seen the species before.
Steve Kerr, volunteer fly expert from Otago Museum, identified it on iNaturalist as a known but still undescribed species. Entomologist Rod Macfarlane called it "Genus A sp.1" and entomologist Stephen Thorpe called it "Muscidae ST1". (Both Rod and Stephen are no longer with us.)
Steve notes that the species has been "seen only a few times in the past ten years".
It's indicative of NZ's minimal investment in invertebrate taxonomy that a species like this can go for several decades without a professional having time to give it a scientific name. Volunteers can add a lot of natural history knowledge on citizen science platforms like iNaturalist but we rely on the foundation of species names that is built and maintained by professional taxonomists.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/337641181
#flies #Diptera #nz #taxononmy #UndescribedSpecies #entomology
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/032/792/457/938/147/original/8bed83e5ed74348a.jpg

2026-02-08 01:52:25 UTC

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I'm up to 12 new moth species for our garden this year, thanks to the NZ moth identifiers on iNaturalist and the handy Compare tool on iNat. The Compare tool shows me what species are different between this year and my past years' mothing in my garden. It's handy.
Here are photos of four more of my newbies. These are more greys and browns. All are NZ endemic species.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/compare?s=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%3D
#iNaturalistNZ #iNaturalist #moths #Mothodon #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #nz
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/032/472/141/939/640/original/6fb8edfbc781075a.jpg
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2026-02-04 06:08:48 UTC

Each season I do four nights of moth lighting in my garden in suburban Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ. My summer moth lighting this year started on Saturday. I photograph every moth that settles at my light and today I've been uploading my photos to #iNaturalist.
I've been doing this consistently each autumn since 2015 and every season each year since (at least) 2021. You might think I would have found all the moth species that visit my garden, but no.
So far I've finished uploading Saturday's moth photos and have found six new species to our garden. Here are four of them.
There's the endemic moth *Gymnobathra hamatella*:
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/337290749
There's the "nationally vulnerable" endemic species *Gadira leucophthalma*:
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/337263605
There's the endemic Clematis triangle *Deana hybreasalis*:
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/337285888
Also, less ideal, there's the introduced Case-bearing Clothes Moth *Tinea pellionella*:
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/337285916
#mothodon #moths #Lepidoptera #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #NZ #insects #EcologicalMonitoring
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/010/837/343/035/260/original/8c68944511cd6516.jpg
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/010/838/659/120/697/original/d3aea169b55259da.jpg
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/010/839/138/704/415/original/e57545c7cbfffa91.jpg
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/010/839/551/885/703/original/3a0f0edc2ee8efcc.jpg

2026-02-01 07:40:40 UTC

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And, at the opposite extreme of moths from a huge and fluffy gum emperor moth, there was this minute brown Batrachedra moth.
Whereas the gum emperor moth is generally cheery, the Batrachedra looks grumpy. 😄
I saw one at my home moth light in January last year, and it's back again this year.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/336922795
#mothodon #moths #Christchurch #Ōtautahi #NZ #entomology #insects
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/115/994/235/103/115/203/original/bb03754913281cd6.jpg

2026-02-01 07:26:48 UTC

Check out this big gum emperor moth that visited my moth light at home last night, in Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ.
I first thought there was a bird flapping in the bushes, before it appeared. This one was pinker than most I've seen, and it happily clambered about on its big fluffy feet.
They're more like Pokémon than real moths.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/336921630
#moths #mothodon #Christchurch #NZ #Ōtautahi #insects #entomology
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/115/994/160/312/622/042/original/f1eab5384105d77c.jpg
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2026-01-31 09:26:06 UTC

As much as I loathe LLM "AI" built from hoards of stolen data, machine learning "AI" has become terrifically useful.
This past week I had 10 audio recorders set out in the forest and nearby grassland, all recording non-stop from Monday afternoon to Friday morning. That was on our recent university field ecology field trip.
Today I downloaded all the files to a hard drive (156 GB of data) and then I set my little M1 Macbook Air to work, using the offline desktop BirdNet app to identify all of the birds in the recordings.
It took most of the day, and now I have a 42,284 row spreadsheet of birds detected.
It really feels like magic.
Here's a quick sorted lists of all the bird detections with species IDs with a confidence score >0.9.
Together with the students in the course, we'll later compare how birds have changed since we started doing this in 2020, and how the birds in the grassland differ from the forest.
#birds #BirdNet #ecology #nz #MachineLearning
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/115/988/969/153/823/618/original/bc0fcaa2e7ed265a.png

2026-01-24 21:50:47 UTC

I just saw *seven* male korimako (NZ bellbirds) at our sugar water feeder all *at the same time*. That might be a house record.
Here are two of them.
Plus, there was a juvenile being fed by its mother nearby.
That's one up-side of grey stormy weather. It brings in the birds to our garden feeders.
#birds #nz #sugarWaterFeeder #Christchurch
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/115/952/268/995/225/791/original/402012b019c8d55a.jpeg
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/115/952/268/995/418/940/original/8ac5ca341f43b0c4.jpeg

2026-01-24 09:49:28 UTC

Here are four of the many things I found taking my camera for a run this afternoon in Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ.
Curious European greenfinches on a wire (one twisted around to look at me): https://inaturalist.nz/observations/335927660
A late instar caterpillar of an Australian yellow admiral butterfly that I found feeding on a European dwarf nettle: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/335927656
A mallard duck swimming on the Heathcote River with the *best* reflections (I took a lot more photos of the swirling patterns on the silver water): https://inaturalist.nz/observations/335927802
A mushroom of what I think is the native *Pluteus readiarum*, growing on the dead stump of a planted ribbonwood tree: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/335927658
#nature #WildCounts #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #NZ
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/115/949/415/017/581/371/original/a2fb8d7c3f84ed47.jpg
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2026-01-11 04:50:21 UTC

Yesterday I was at The Art of Banksy exhibition in central Christchurch, NZ, "the world's largest exhibition of Banksy art". It was pretty great. There were photos and prints of the stencilled images that Banksy has sprayed on walls about the world, with lots of cutting, insightful commentary on how messed up our world is.
Then, today, I was out on the streets of Christchurch and I saw a message someone had written in chalk on the footpath (sidewalk): "I LOVE BEANS".
Fair enough. For all of society's faults, beans are good.
🙂
#graffiti #art #BANKSY #nz #tepaechristchurch
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2026-01-08 05:14:42 UTC

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This is a great article.
As someone who teaches at a university, there's a lot to mull over here. I like the concept that writing can be alchemical, when done right. I get that. It's like magic when things connect in unexpected ways and new ideas emerge.
I'm also digesting your suggestion that by making writing assignments simple, prescriptive and easy to mark, we're training students to write like LLMs. Hmm. I'll think about how to do better.

2026-01-04 05:19:46 UTC

Watchful eyes!
I took this photo at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens on Friday. I just looked closely enough to realise that only one of the four ducks wasn't watching me.
😄
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/333398089
#ducks #birds #nz #Christchurch #ducklings
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2026-01-03 05:57:31 UTC

Behold, a feeding frenzy of Plum Sharks!
Plum sharks AKA kererū, the NZ wood pigeon.
Plums are in full fruit in Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ, at the moment. I was on Valley Road today in Cashmere there were at least 11 kererū feasting in the plum trees up the side of the road.
I think plums are one of the big reasons that these birds venture down from the hills into the city at this time of year.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/333255361
#birds #fruigivory #plums #Prunus #woodpigeon #pigeons #kererū #nz #Christchurch #nature #iNaturalist #iNaturalistNZ
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2025-12-25 07:44:29 UTC

NZ's flower expert Phil Garnock-Jones has an article in The Conversation on some of NZ's distinctive native plants that flower around Christmas time.
"Pōhutukawa flowers reflect strongly in both the red and ultraviolet wavelengths, but they absorb most of the blue and green wavelengths also found in sunlight. This is a pattern characteristic of bird-pollinated flowers, as is the fact that the flowers have no scent but produce a lot of nectar. Pōhutukawa flowers are also visited and pollinated by pekapeka, native short-tailed bats."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/582692/most-of-nz-s-flowering-plants-grow-nowhere-else-and-christmas-falls-in-peak-blooming-season
#flowers #botany #nz #pohutukawa #TheConversation

2025-12-05 20:21:04 UTC

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Some birds sunbathe to look after their feathers.
I've known that it's good for driving out external parasites. I read now on the website of the British Trust for Ornithology that it also "helps oil from the 'preen gland' to spread across the feathers, keeping them healthy and in good condition."
https://www.bto.org/learn/about-birds/behaviour/preening-bathing
#birds #summer #sunbathing

2025-12-05 20:18:23 UTC

Your body's black. It's hot and sunny. Surely you'd go rest in the shade?
Not if you're a blackbird!
Yesterday I was in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens on a hot norwester afternoon, and lots of the resident blackbirds were out sunbathing.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/329548946
#birds #hot #sunbathing #nz #blackbird #nature
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2025-12-01 08:20:42 UTC

Hello, I am a spider. Will you be my friend?
😀
I photographed this little guy on the weekend in Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ. It's an Australian Bronze Hopper, Helpis minitabunda. Introduced accidentally to NZ, it now occurs throughout the North Island and upper to middle South Island.
This species is unusual amongst spiders in that the male is larger than the female.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/329039712
#JumpingSpider #Salticidae #NZ #entomology #spiders #nature
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2025-11-30 06:22:22 UTC

I was reminded this week that trout in New Zealand rivers are introduced predators and that this is not good for some native fish.
I was up in the mountains at Craigieburn Forest Park on Thursday (scoping out a new university ecology field trip). One of our team thought she saw a trout in Cave Stream, and I got a quick photo.
We were with retired forester Nick Ledgard, who spent much of his career working here. He had seen native galaxid fish in the stream before and thought it was trout free, since trout would have difficulty getting up past the cave system that Cave Stream is known for.
Looking at my photo later, I unfortunately confirmed that it was a brown trout.
NZers love trout and trout management is an important way to advocate for cleaner rivers. Still, it is also important for native fish conservation (especially non-migratory galaxid fish) that some stretches of our rivers remain trout free.
http://inaturalist.nz/observations/328459396
#fish #nz #BiologicalInvasions #trout

2025-11-29 22:01:34 UTC

Look! Cinnabar moth!
Last summer I was surprised to find cinnabar moth caterpillars feeding on the native pahokoraka, Senecio quadridentatus, in the middle of Christchurch city, NZ. Cinnabar moths were released to control the European pasture weed ragwort back in the 1940s.
I collected four caterpillars and fed them on pahokoraka leaves until they pupated on 16 January. I put them on some scrunched up newsprint in a plastic container and put that outside in a shaded area of our garden. Today, three adult moths emerged.
They're day-flying moths which retain the poisons of their host plants and advertise that to would-be predators with their bright colours,
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/328816568
#mothodon #moths #nz #Christchurch #BiologicalControl
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2025-11-18 07:18:29 UTC

Pink grasshopper! Pink!!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/579236/rare-pink-grasshopper-discovered-during-annual-mackenzie-basin-survey
#grasshopper #entomology #insects #nz #nature

2025-11-09 04:53:00 UTC

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That reminds me of this photo that our daughter took recently of our pet rabbit Firecracker and her best buddy Gimli Pig. They're both old pets now. Firecracker's sister has passed away, as has Gimli's brother, so it's pretty neat how they hang out together.
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/115/517/890/976/810/368/original/b86714020cae466f.jpeg

2025-11-01 20:20:01 UTC

#DPReview has a new article about a jaw-dropppingly great photo by Dan Zafra, in New Zealand, of the milky way, the comet SWAN, and aurora, *and* red sprites. It's insane!
The foreground looks to be the Ōmarama clay cliffs.
https://www.dpreview.com/articles/7526167980/a-photographer-s-journey-to-capture-one-of-nature-s-rarest-and-most-enchanting-displays
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTwM30VQjwg&t=2s
#nz #photography #astrophotography #redsprites

2025-10-05 06:00:47 UTC

One of the fun things about working in an ecology department at a university is being surrounded by people who are *really, really good* at finding interesting critters.
On Thursday we took our annual first year ecology course field trip to Ōtamahua/Quail Island. That's a reserve in the middle of Lyttelton Harbour, where the pest mammals (except mice) have been removed and lots of trees have been planted. It was a great day.
Here's entomology Masters student George Gibbs, a genius at finding insects, with one of a pair of mating stick insects that he found.
And, here's Jennifer Gillette, our talented herpetologist, with two native geckos she found. (Don't pick up geckos. Jennifer has training and a permit from the Department of Conservation to handle these.)
#LincolnUniversityNZ #nature #insects #geckos #NZ #CanterburyNZ #QuailIsland #Ōtamahua
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2025-10-03 09:22:57 UTC

I had to stop on my bike ride to work this morning to shepherd four paradise shelduck ducklings across a busy road. This was on the outskirts of Halswell in Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ.
Thankfully the cars stopped and waited. I'm not sure where Mum was. They seemed to be looking for her. I hope they found her as I didn't seen any of them when I passed on my return home.
Spring is definitely here.
#birds #ducks #ducklings #nz
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2025-09-14 06:13:58 UTC

How to unexpectedly acquire a chicken in 6 easy steps:
1) Go to a remote forest reserve in the hills where you've never seen a chicken before. Find a chicken waiting for you there.
2) Offer the chicken food. (I had an old, unopened muesli bar in my backpack that did the trick.)
3) Feed the chicken some of the food by the car.
4) Slowly open the car door, and put some of the food inside the car. Provide a step up into the car for the chicken. (If the chicken is suspicious of the backpack you first use as a step, swap that out for something the chicken recognises, like a nearby brick.)
5) Wait patiently for the chicken to hop up into the car.
6) Close the car door. Drive home with the chicken.
😄
#chickens #NZ #ChickenRescue #ChristchurchPortHills #birds
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2025-09-13 09:25:48 UTC

We had a couple of interesting ecology and conservation seminars this week at #LincolnUniversityNZ. The first, on Monday, was by Lou Sanson, ex-Director General of the NZ Department of Conservation.
Lou is now involved in the 30x30 initiative to protect 30% of Earth's land area and 30% of its marine area. 30x30 is an international effort, driven by 122 of the world's countries, which have all signed up to be part of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People.
Lou gave a tour of some of the amazing projects happening around the world to protect the planet's wild places, as part of 30x30.
Is New Zealand part of this? No, of course not. We'd need a change of government for NZ to show leadership on conservation and environmental issues.
We do already have 30% of our land in reserves. Almost all of that is in the highest and wettest parts of the country, where English settlers couldn't farm. NZ hasn’t made a national park or a world heritage area in 25 years, and many of our reserves are struggling under pressure from pests and weeds. We have only 2% of our oceans protected.
We can do a lot better. As Lou concluded, “We’re seen as a world leader but we're not acting as a world leader at the moment.”
https://hacfornatureandpeople.org/
https://earthshotprize.org/winners-finalists/high-ambition-coalition-for-nature-and-people/
#nz #conservation #30x30 #nzpol #BiodiversityCrisis
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2025-09-05 20:54:45 UTC

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So sad. 😔 Hugs from Mastodon NZ.

2025-09-01 10:52:00 UTC

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Which reminds me of this from #DouglasAdams
"It's easy to think that as a result of the extinction of the dodo we are now sadder and wiser, but there's a lot of evidence to suggest that we are merely sadder and better informed."
Douglas Adams, 1990, Last Chance to See

2025-09-01 10:48:52 UTC

#MarkAvery reminds us that it’s 111 years today since the extinction of the last passenger pigeon, a species that just a few decades earlier was the commonest bird on the planet.
https://markavery.info/2025/09/01/passenger-pigeon-day-111-years-gone/
#birds #extinction #PassengerPigeon #PassengerPigeonDay

2025-08-27 02:01:43 UTC

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Thanks. Yes, that looks great too! I'll bookmark it now.

2025-08-27 00:39:27 UTC

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This is a fantastic interview. I like the framing that it's in our cities, and especially our suburbs, where change is most needed if we're to get the world onto a sustainable track.
"Nations talk, cities act."

2025-08-27 00:29:15 UTC

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I had naively thought that wealthy corporate types would recognise the *huge* financial benefits of not driving the world's habitable environments off a cliff. Yet, here we are with the cliff fast approaching.

2025-08-23 22:47:59 UTC

I just posted an animated gif to #iNaturalist of the hoard of silvereyes (tauhou) that visit our sugar water feeders every morning. So many little sugar junkies.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/308562364
#Zosterops #silvereye #tauhou #nz #SugarWaterFeeder #birds
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2025-08-16 10:52:15 UTC

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A black hole 36 *billion* times the mass of the Sun is *mindbogglingly* big!

2025-08-16 10:02:02 UTC

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Here’s an excellent follow-up Q&A video with landscape designer Carlos Campos Morera. There‘s a lot in here about gardening and knowing about plants, and putting the right plants in the right places, and planting the right plants for wildlife and wildfire prevention.
For example, if a plant has "super beefy jumbo roots" it’s going to come from a place with coarse chunky mineral rich soils.
Also, there’s wisdom: “The best thing you can do for your garden is look at it every day".
And, there’s gnome philosophy.
> Are gnomes cool? Can I use kitchsy stuff and still be respected by my neighors?
“Yes, gnomes are cool. You should ask yourself if a gnome is cool and if a gnome is cool to you then you should put a gnome, or many gnomes, or hundreds of gnomes, in your garden. I think the stuff that's "cool" in reality is the stuff that people are truly authentically into and it's like part of their personality and they don't give a shit whether their neighbour's respect them or not.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POf1VbaqhOk
#gardening #gardens #botany #horticulture #plants #gnomes

2025-08-15 23:51:10 UTC

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That image of Ulysses with Bluesky sirens and a stowaway is spectacular. 😄

2025-08-15 08:23:58 UTC

Here's an excellent video from Architectural Digest about the Geoponika greenhouse, a "plant orphanage" in LA of old plant collections. The plants are cared for by landscape designer Carlos Campos Morera. Among the collection is a female Welwitschia (an ancient Namibian gymnosperm) which is grown in stacked old sewer pipes to allow it to grow a deep tap root to a deep desert water table.
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/video/watch/unique-spaces-inside-a-hidden-la-greenhouse-full-of-the-worlds-rarest-plants
#botany #ArchitecturalDigest #plants #glasshouse #horticulture #Geoponika

2025-08-13 08:38:48 UTC

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Yes, it’s appalling. Here’s the coverage of this in the NZ media this morning.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/569833/embassy-staff-in-contact-with-kiwi-woman-detained-in-us-immigration-facility

2025-08-12 08:45:50 UTC

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Fascinating thread. There is so much unexpected life and celebration in these coffins.

2025-08-09 09:18:52 UTC

Here's your friendly neighbourhood reminder that the New Zealand tomtit, miromiro, has *bright orange feet*!
My feet feel so inadequate.
I saw this female up the Nina Valley in the North Canterbury mountains last weekend.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/304917711
#nz #birds #Petroica
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2025-08-07 09:10:39 UTC

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The rango pango reminds me of this excellent article on big blue flies in New Zealand. It's "A Cure for the Blue Fly Blues" by Steve Kerr, NZ's fly expert from the Otago Museum.
NZ has quite a few similar looking large blue flies, like this Ngaro Tamumu , the Metallic Blue Hover Fly. Steve's article shows how to tell them all apart.
https://inaturalist.nz/projects/stayinathome-nz/journal/32727-stayinathome-a-cure-for-the-blue-fly-blues
#Diptera #flies #nz #iNaturalistNZ
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2025-08-07 08:35:52 UTC

Behold, Rango Pango!
That's the Māori name for this elegant native New Zealand blowfly. The fly is mostly black with a big shiny blue abdomen.
This rango pango landed on a student during our weekend field trip up in the North Canterbury mountains. She (the student) was kind enough to stay still while I photographed it.
Unlike most blowflies, rango pango maggots can grow up on rotting plant material as well as animal carcasses. The adult flies are pollinators of many plants.
This is the third observation on iNat of this species from the North Canterbury Southern Alps.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/304190384
#flies #Diptera #NZ #Calliphora #Calliphoridae #blowflies #iNaturalist #insects
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2025-08-01 08:55:43 UTC

"Feel Inside (and stuff like that)" by Flight of the Conchords.
I love this. Flight of the Conchords took suggested lyrics from children and wrapped them into a song and had a group of NZ musicians perform it for charity.
Here's the official Cure Kids long version. (The song is at the end of the video.)
"We all just wanna' be bubbles."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py_30jZGUYk
#JukeboxFridayNight
#SongsToMakeUsSmile

2025-07-31 19:59:46 UTC

Good luck with that, NACT. Sheesh.
Last night the current NZ government passed legislation repealing the previous government’s ban on offshore oil and gas exploration. This morning’s headline news on #RNZ has the government publicly pleading with opposition parties not to reverse this when they’re back in power.
NZ’s opposition parties understand that climate change is real, it’s going to be catastrophic, and burning fossil fuels is to blame.
This bit also seems relevant: “Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade assessed that reversing the 2018 ban would likely be inconsistent with the obligations in several of New Zealand's free-trade agreements.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/568623/coalition-parties-call-for-opposition-not-to-re-ban-oil-and-gas-exploration
#nzpol #ClimateChange

2025-07-26 06:00:29 UTC

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Over here in New Zealand, Himalayan balsam is still near the beginning of its march through our wetlands and streams. It's had a few centuries head start in the UK. I think in NZ we should be taking it far more seriously than we are.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations?place_id=6803&subview=map&taxon_id=47892&verifiable=any
#weeds

2025-07-12 09:46:28 UTC

#ArteConcert is so amazing! I don't remember who on Mastodon first pointed me to it but it's *so good*. Thanks to whoever you are.
If you don't know it, Arte is a a European public service channel and Arte Concert is their live music. The live concert performances are top quality and it's all free to watch, with *no ads* (thanks EU!).
This evening I've been watching a jazz concert by Hiromi's Sonicwonder. Earlier in the week I watched Moderat live at the Grand Palais in Paris. I've discovered fantastic African blues musician Fatoumata Diawara and Cuban funk musician Cimafunk and singer song-writer Asaf Avidan. There's everything from metal to electronic to jazz to classical.
While a lot of the internet has been turning to ad-filled spyware goop, Arte Concert is a wonderful exception.
This is me feeling grateful.
https://www.arte.tv/en/arte-concert/
#music #concerts

2025-07-12 07:48:50 UTC

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That is excellent. I like that he includes patience and experimentation in his list of essential skills for macro photography.
I’m now following Trey on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/193306436@N06/

2025-06-13 08:13:27 UTC

Here's a way to explore something that is far out. *Way* far out!
I've been zooming in and exploring the interactive web viewer for the James Webb telescope's new deep field view. According to Anton Petrov's new video on this, there's about 800,000 galaxies(!) in this view, which is a tiny fraction of the whole night sky.
Our universe is insanely HUGE!
It's also incredible that everyone can explore these massive images on our browsers. Thanks to the astonomers that made this possible.
https://cosmos2025.iap.fr/fitsmap.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jId8sqwZQpQ
#astronomy #jwst #galaxies

2025-06-12 06:05:18 UTC

I'm pleased to report that I have a "senile wart" (otherwise known as seborrhoeic keratosis). I'd noticed a bumpy brown spot on my chest growing fast over the past few weeks. I just got back from a molecheck appointment and am relieved that it's nothing nefarious. Still, let this be a friendly neighborhood reminder to you all to get a regular mole check, especially if you're like me and grew up on the beach in NZ before sunscreen was a big thing.
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2025-06-04 08:06:33 UTC

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There’s only three of us in the house, so I’m locked off in one room masked up, and my wife and daughter use the rest of the house. We stay masked (my daughter doesn’t when she’s in her room with the door closed). When the weather’s mild, the windows are opened to air everything out. When I need to come out for the kitchen, etc. we keep our distance in separate rooms.
This is the third time now one of us has brought Covid home. Each of the other times, one of the others had caught it from the first person before they realised they had it (Covid is an infectious thing) but then the masks went up and the other person dodged it. This time I caught it right at the start. Fingers crossed.

2025-06-04 07:50:17 UTC

Bugger. I’m still faintly positive.
Remember to test, mask, and isolate. The old rules still work.
I first tested positive at the end of last Thursday when my nose started running. I’ve been masked and isolating from my family for six days now, and they’re still fine.
Almost there.
#COVID19
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2025-06-02 07:35:27 UTC

I saw a cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) flying by this afternoon, in Ōtautahi-Chirstchurch, NZ, which was a big surprise.
I just checked and this is the first time ever that I've seen a cabbage white adult in June. I've been monitoring butterflies in the city since 2003 and have >37,000 cabbage white observations in my #wildcounts database. Me seeing one in June is officially weird.
Also, none of the 1,983 observations of cabbage whites from the Canterbury Region on #iNaturalist are adult butterflies in June.
I'd be interested if anyone sees more.
This, and daffodils coming into flower, and flowering cherries starting to bloom, all before winter kicks in, suggests that some animals and plants are getting thoroughly confused by the warming climate.
#nz #butterflies #Lepidoptera #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #phenology #GlobalWarming #ClimateChange

2025-06-01 04:17:31 UTC

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Looks interesting.

2025-05-24 10:04:53 UTC

I was fortunate to spend today at Ōnuku, near Akaroa, on Banks Peninsula, NZ, helping the tūī team to catch and band tūī.
This is part of the ongoing effort to understand and manage the tūī on Banks Peninsula. The species was lost from the Peninsula due to forest habitat loss and pest mammals. Community restoration work has been reversing both of these and a new tūī population was kick-started by the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust, with the translocation of birds from the Maud Island sanctuary in 2009 and 2010.
Thanks to the annual banding efforts, and the local community reporting the banded birds when they see them, we know that the population is now slowly growing and expanding.
All banding is done by registered Level 3 bird banders. My job today was to help spot the mist nets when the bird banders were busy with caught birds.
#nz #tui #birds #conservation
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2025-05-22 08:59:59 UTC

I just watched this video of restored and colourised movie footage of the centre city of Christchurch, New Zealand, mostly from the 1920s. As the commenters on YouTube note, it also mixes in some historical footage from Napier, Wellington, and Auckland. Regardless, it’s a fascinating glimpse into what NZ cities were like at this time.
There are lots of pedestrians and cyclists and trams, and people wearing dapper clothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dbZTUOMaiA
#history #nz #transport

2025-05-09 21:31:32 UTC

It’s not every week that #RNZ has a story about spider genitalia. This is such a week. Kate Curtis, a current PhD student at #LincolnUniversityNZ, has been hard at work figuring out all of the jumping spiders we have in Aotearoa-NZ. There’s estimated to be about 200 (most of them) that need scientific names. Figuring out which is which requires careful microscope work looking at spider genitalia. Along the way Kate’s finding new species.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/560268/native-jumping-spider-found-in-restored-rotorua-forest
#nz #nature #spiders #Salticidae

2025-02-14 21:20:12 UTC

#RNZ has a good article on planting weeds in gardens then selling them. Casual sales of garden plants by gardeners is an important way that weeds move about the country, and it’s difficult for regional council Biosecurity staff to keep on top of. Just because a plant is pretty doesn’t mean it’s safe to sell. You can learn what plants are on #iNaturalist and check their status on WeedBusters NZ.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/541782/backyard-nurseries-spreading-pest-plants-in-southland
https://weedbusters.org.nz
#nz #weeds #gardens #biosecurity

2025-02-14 20:25:36 UTC

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Fantastic video! Thanks for digging that up. I didn’t expect to start my day watching a 1940s video about a Northamptonshire hedger. Hedging properly takes a lot of skill.
“This one is another relict of badly done layering.”

2025-02-14 10:19:21 UTC

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That looks like a fascinating book. I hadn’t realised that Medieval hedge maintenance was so involved.
“The bent part of the hawthorn is called a plasher, the skill known as plashing or pleaching.”

2025-02-03 21:59:45 UTC

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Intetesting article. “Weeds have evolved resistance to 168 different herbicides and 21 of the 31 known “modes of action,” which means the specific biochemical target or pathway a chemical is designed to disrupt.”
Herbicides are a useful and important tool in our weed control toolbox but are best used in a targeted way alongside other weed control methods. As the article notes, we get into big trouble when we make regular and widespread use of them without considering evolution.

2025-02-02 08:49:47 UTC

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😄

2025-02-02 08:02:10 UTC

This is the bird we call Dent Head.
We first saw Dent Head visiting our garden in October 2021. He had such a colossal head injury that we didn't expect he'd last long.
Instead, his head has healed (sort of) and he's been a regular visitor to our garden ever since.
Here's Dent Head yesterday, feeding from one of our sugar water feeders while I was hanging out laundry less than 2 metres away.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/260354173
#nz #korimako #bellbird #birds #nature #Anthornis #Ōtautahi
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2025-02-01 05:58:26 UTC

When we visited the Christchurch Botanic gardens recently my daughter took me to this ancient ivy, her favorite plant in the gardens. It has some terrifically twisted, creepy H. R. Eiger vibes.
It grows up the side of a giant sequoia tree that was planted in 1873. I expect the ivy cannot be much younger than that as its base is completely smothered by large sequoia roots.
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/260229137
#botany #vines #plants #nz #Christchurch #BotanicGarden #ivy #ThickTrunkTuesday.
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2025-01-31 04:37:30 UTC

This has got to be the most amazing thing I’ve read this week, Evidence is mounting that large sandstone caves in Amazonian South America, large enough to comfortably walk through and the longest with 1,500 metres of tunnels, were carved out by giant ground sloths. Yes, ground sloths!
“The South American palaeoburrows might be the largest ichnofossils known so far.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00216-x
#archeology #palaeontology #MegaFauna #GroundSloth #Brazil #amazon
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2025-01-17 05:09:39 UTC

A reminder that great willowherb is still beginning its spread in NZ.
This wetland weed grows dense and taller than me in ideal conditions, like Travis Wetland. It was 1st seen on #iNaturalistNZ by botanist Jason Butt in 2016 in Nth Canterbury. Biosecurity NZ considered eradication but by 2018 it was in Christchurch's wetlands. Environment Canterbury is trying to contain it.
I found 4 plants in the city today and pulled them out: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/258712769
#weeds #biosecurity #nz #weedbusters
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2025-01-14 05:19:59 UTC

Here are some of the male korimako (NZ bellbirds) that have visited the sugar water feeders in our garden this week, singing up a storm.
I've realised that they're so used to us now that I can stand by an open window within half a metre of one of our sugar water feeders to photograph them and they don't seem to mind at all. Magic! (And often loud.)
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/258439555
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/258439548
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/258439551
https://inaturalist.nz/observations/258439552
#birds #nz #nature #garden #Ōtautahi #photography
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2025-01-14 00:20:26 UTC

When I was out for my weekly run on the weekend I bumped into local botanist William Reinders, down on his hands and knees peering at a dandelion.
He showed me a small patch of grass just over the fence in the horse paddock, with three species of Rytidosperma grass, two native to NZ. One of them, R. merum, is "At Risk (Declining)".
William is the top plant observer in Christchurch on #iNaturalistNZ. He's so far found 1,541 plant species in the city.
#botany #nz #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #grasses
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2025-01-13 23:10:34 UTC

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That sounds really rough. 😔

2025-01-05 03:53:10 UTC

Ōtautahi-Christchurch has been buffeted by crazily strong winds all day. I've been watching our trees twist and flex and shake.
It's a reminder that trees have evolved not to optimally function on average days, but to withstand and survive through extreme days.
We should keep this in mind when designing our society.
https://flic.kr/p/2qDEcRW
#weather #wind #trees #resilence

2025-01-02 03:50:13 UTC

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thanks for the heads up. I’m downloading Fooodprint now. It sounds like an excellent idea for reducing food waste.

2024-12-25 21:27:29 UTC

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“while ants perform more efficiently in larger groups, the opposite is true for humans”

2024-12-24 09:06:38 UTC

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Good timely tips.
I didn't know that raisins were poisonous to dogs, but, sure enough, they are. Yikes. Dog kidneys do not deal with raisins.
https://www.petpoisonhelpline.com/pet-tips/how-many-raisins-are-toxic-to-dogs-everything-you-need-to-know/
(Our rabbit, on the other hand, enjoys the occasional raisin treat, as do I.)

2024-12-22 20:24:18 UTC

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas?
This is Woody the Dog Root along Harry Ell track in Victoria Park, Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ. They may have lost an eye and gained some false teeth but they're now also sporting a fetching festive Santa hat.
Who's a good dog root?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mollivan_jon/54221162439/
#nz #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #VictoriaPark #ForestWalk #dog #StreetArt
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2024-12-22 08:55:07 UTC

Today was a fluffy cloud day over Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ.
Later in the afternoon, all the fluffy clouds got together and rained on some of us. That included me while I was out for run but it was warm and scenic so I was happy.
#weather #clouds #nz #Ōtautahi #Christchurch #NZ #ChristchurchPortHIlls #photography #landscape
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2024-12-20 07:55:35 UTC

Today I chatted with Jesse Mulligan on #RNZ Afternoons, because #iNaturalistNZ is just a whisker (or an antenna or a hypha) away for *3 million observations*(!!).
Earlier in the week we were thinking we might pass the 3 million milestone on Christmas Eve, but now it’s looking like we’ll pass it tomorrow. At the moment we’re at 2,999,457 observations, of 23,518 species (about 30% of NZ’s named species), observed by 50,519 (not far off 1% of NZers).
😄
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018969354/3-million-creepy-crawlies
#CitSci #NZ
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2024-12-19 09:21:39 UTC

As they usually do at this time of year, Reactor (previously Tor.com), a publisher of terrific scifi and fantasy, puts out a free ebook of some of their favourite short stories from the year.
There is always some amazing, creative, thoroughly weird, and sometimes crazy mind-blowing, stuff in these. The 2024 edition is just up and available in EPUB and PDF:
https://reactormag.com/download-some-of-the-best-from-reactor-2024-edition/
#scifi #fantasy #fiction #ShortStories #reactormag #reactor

2024-12-18 07:35:43 UTC

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An excellent set.

2024-12-17 23:22:38 UTC

It's interesting to have lived through a time when operating system upgrades were major jumps in functionality, and now be in a time when OS upgrades are followed by app upgrades that need to turn off the new features.
This is a screenshot on my Mac of the update window for TeXShop, turning off Apple's new Math Expression Completion feature (part of its Apple Intelligence). To quote the update "This addition is almost never appropriate in TeX source code".
#app #ai #TeXLaTeX #mac
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2024-12-17 22:11:37 UTC

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Reminds me of Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow_Bob#/media/File:C-bob.png

2024-12-16 19:50:34 UTC

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Hah! That's very good. Yes, exactly.

2024-12-16 09:06:41 UTC

Here are some photos from my bike ride home from work today in the rain.
There's one of two kererū up a tree: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/255274497
and two mute swans on the river: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/255274495
and a pohutukawa tree coming into bloom: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/255274496
and, of course, I was speaking nature observations into my phone as I rode, with my phone and microphone protected from the rain in a plastic bag.
#nature #BikeTooter #bikes #WildCounts #EcologicaMonitoring #iNaturalist #iNaturalistNZ
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2024-12-12 07:00:57 UTC

Little owl https://inaturalist.nz/observations/254879055
Magpie https://inaturalist.nz/observations/254879471
Thrush https://inaturalist.nz/observations/254879334
Kererū https://inaturalist.nz/observations/254879209
#NZ #roadkill #CarsKill #birds
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2024-12-12 03:51:55 UTC

My daughter is studying for a NZ driver's license and shared this gem: "Roads can include any places the public have access to."
To quote her, "they showed me a football field and asked if it was a road and I said no and they said actually legally it is because the public can access it."
A "road" in the Land Transport Act 1998 includes "A place to which the public have access, whether as of right or not".
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/what-is-a-road/what-is-a-road/
#roads #transport #NZ
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2024-12-11 07:05:46 UTC

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🙁 I'm sure what you're doing is helping.