We have a resident pair of Kingfisher near the house that nest in a big old Phoenix Palm beside the swimming pool. They have a luxury roost! On the lawn about 20 metres away is our rain gauge, and one (or maybe both) of the Kingfishers recently decided that the rain gauge was a brilliant perch for sitting quietly and catching prey. Clever stuff, except they sat and delicately pooped straight down into the rain gauge! Pete was getting a bit miffed with having to constantly clean it out and it was hampering his rain recording accuracy too! What to do!? From my experience with bird behaviour, I suggested Pete plant a higher perch in front of the rain gauge
in the direction the Kingfisher usually sat. It worked perfectly! No bird likes to be out perched! S/he now takes her place daily on the specially made perch with dowel just the right width for best grip. I watched this morning as it scooped up a skink and sat on its new perch, consuming its prey in seconds.
In that same area is one of four little Kawakawa saplings that I planted to see if I can grow these native medicinal trees to supplement the ONE mature Kawakawa tree we have on our 6ha. Our beautiful 5m high x 3m wide verdant Kawakawa tree is near the house, behind the vege
gardens. It’s growing below a sandy/clay cliff of about 20m, at the base of a little hill we call Pig Hill (cos we had Kunekunes there once). I love this Kawakawa tree which is sprouting candles again this spring. It’s a taonga/treasure that clings on about a metre up the cliff where it must be relatively free draining.
Concerned that we only had this one tree, a few months ago I bought four young Kawakawa saplings about half a metre high from a local grower. I planted one in the same bank/cliff about 10m along from our thriving Kawakawa, but this new one is struggling. Its leaves are a pale washed out green. The second one, I planted across the shady race from the happy older tree, among other natives like karamu coprosma and pittosporum. Its doing well with lots of new dark green leaves.
