Ημερολόγιο της/του tangatawhenua

Here is a strange little critter that @tony_wills spotted and it is a first for MT (Mātaki Taiao which is the Maori for iNatNZ) . So how many of us can spot others? Apparently they are maybe 5 to 10mm long. In the surf near and amongst seaweed, lowtide.

If you check out the obs you will also find animations of how this little critter moves :)

Happy searching! :D

On Tuesday night I boarded a plane in Perth, arriving in Auckland at 6 on Wednesday morning. As I had been wandering around a wetland 4 days ago and ended up in a paddock with a bull I decleared my boots as I had stood in a few cow pats. I get into the line for NZ passport holders who had something to declare and I start wondering if I am in the right line because being born and raised in NZ I speak Maori and English yet in this line those languages were not heard, but I could see they had NZ passports ...

When I finally get to the "Biosecurity Screening officer"I explain about my boots and show him the soles. He says, "thats ok" ... what????? I have cow pats on the soles and all the other times I have declared my boots I have to go to the boot cleaning station, but this time I am let through with them as is???? No wonder there are more and more invasive speices being found if the so called "Biosecurity Screening officer" doesn't care. Oh, but he does send me to get my bags screened - nothing found, but never mind the boots - what a sad country this is when there are recent immigrants (his acent gave that away) being a "Biosecurity Screening officer", doesn't bother - probably because of the state his country of origin is - and I know personally as I have been there. Obviously he wants to help screw up our home ggrrrrr......

But when I get out there is a smiling face to greet me - how lovely! One of my nieces I visited in Queensland is home at the mo, and knowing I was coming i,n came to have a catchup with me before I boarded my next flight to Kerikeri so that cheered me up! LOL

As I am walking onto the tarmac to get the flight to Kerikeri I can not help but smile non stop - so much closer to home! But when we arrive in Kerikeri I get out the plane, look around then say to the air hostess " is this Kerikeri?" She assures me it is - they had demolished the terminal so no wonder I was confused!

The brother is there to pick my up and off we go on our 3 hour drive to his place, where I pick up my truck and go home. And finally I see my profile photo in real life! Naturally I go and have a look before going home and the tide was soooo low but I resisted the temptation to get down there as I knew I was tired and being tired and in the ocean could be a recipe for disaster.

However, the next day I was off down to the moana and oh what a wonderful greeting for me!

Wheke - octopus - are a common sight for me but this time, as soon as I was in water deep enough for them to be (about 300mm), I saw not 1, not 2, but 3 all in the same pool - about 400 - 600mm apart from each other! Wow! Octopus are not very social and yet here were three all gathered together to welcome me home - so magical!

Then when I got to The Rock - one of my favourite places - I saw a kina species that I had never seen before - totally stoked to see something new on my first outing back into the moana - I am so lucky to live here!

That afternoon also, I finally got down the back of my place and got a photo of an orchid in flower - I had known for about 2 years that it grew there but had not been in the country at the right time to get a photo, so something special from the whenua as well :D

So I am now back home, in a magical wonderland that still reveals amazing things for me to see :D The lines of the song are so true:
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

There are so many introduced plants that are invasive and end up crowding out natives and endemics and I have often wondered is there a native or endemic plant that can crowd out the invasive introduced species? Well I finally have an answer and it is YES!!!!!!!!!!

I had an area at my place that had the african daisy and it was spreading rapidly, so I decided when I returned home I would start the labourious task of ripping it out by hand. I have now returned home and have found that aruhe - Bracken - Pteridium esculentum - has taken over a large area where those daisies were growing! I am totally stoked that finally a native is getting revenge on an invasive!

In the photo below you will be able to see what it looked like when in flower

The same area now - you can still see a few of the cape daisy leaves trying to get able the aruhe.

So now I am going to see if I can get the aruhe to grow where the blue corn lily is and maybe it will be able to erradicate that and save me having to hand pull.

We have our very first obs for Sea Vase - Ciona intestinalis by @predomalpha and was found in Auckland so something new to look out for :)

Here is the original obs

Something new to keep an eye out for - a delicate trumpet or ice cream cone :) So far we have 2 obs, one from the Houhora Harbour and another one from the Whangateau harbour which are both on the east coast of northland, but that of course does not mean that they are not lurking further south or on the west coast, it just means that an intrepid sea hunter has not found them there yet LOL

From the family taxon page:
Pectinariidae, or the trumpet worms or ice cream cone worms, are a family of marine polychaete worms that build tubes using grains of sand roughly resembling ice cream cones or trumpets. These structures can be up to 5 centimetres (2 in) long.

Happy hunting!