Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 7:01 pm Post subject: Hot weather
Even with sprinklers and the hose 42 degrees is not kakariki weather. I am happy that I only lost one today. I think the babies that I pull out of the box appreciated it as well.
We are watching Aussie from across the ditch with great concern, in particular the fires.
How are other species/ breeders getting on?
Do u have sprinklers on all the time....there is an old thread from a few years back in SA with high temps and kakariki.
Issues , from memory about the birds going high in flights above the mist of sprinklers , close to roof.
And rather than spray the whole flight, just keeping walls and floor wet... as the water evaporates, it drops the temp....like dipping ones finger into alcohol, and feels cold because of the evaporation. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
Whats going on, we in germany have "spring in winter" - in muinch we had 21°C at christmas, temperatures we had never had bevore, but next week cold times will come... In turkey masses of snow and extrem cold cover the country. Australia ... , .. never so much strong storms reached the USA...
I can rem big fires in aussie back in the late 60s, or there about...we could see the dust and smoke in the sky in NZ, red ...and up in the 82/ 84 F here.
The difference this time is back then a run of a couple years and everything went back 'normal'
These storms, heat waves have been going on for a few years now, and not going back to the 'norm'
Thats a worry. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
Here in Nelson NZ it is windy and hit mid 30's at the weekend. Our kakariki seem ok. I have irigation pipe constantly drip feeding fresh water into a couple of shallow dishes inside the aviary. And plenty of natural shelter for the birds to cool off under trees and shrubs.
Just spent a few days tramping in the hot/windy high country of Mt Richmond Forest Park. Vast area of about 1600 sq Kms. This stunningly beautiful vast mountainous beech forest with a good scatering of rimu, totara, kahikatea. Plus all the other good natural food sources.
The forest should be home to thousands of native birds.
I did not hear a single Kakariki, Kea or Kaka (larger native parrots) Sadly the rats and stoats have cleaned up big time, although there is an abundance of riflemen and quite a good scttering of bellbird. The relentless wasps seem to have cleaned up the honey dew.
Oh how I often just wonder what a delight the New Zealand bush must have been like, a few hundred years ago. It was a vast paradise for birds
We went camping with the daughter, son in law, and grandchildren up into the hills of the Coromandles last week...
I must say I was uterrly dumfounded
I grew up in the 60s, spent a bit of time in the bush, Even down Nelson...
Most places one did not put ones spoon down, sitting around the camp fire...yeah those days campfires... Put a spoon down, wekas will get it.
Birds where a real pain often when starking...if the bush went silent ..and fantails.
Over the whole time in the Coromandles, saw 3 or 4 fantails, one odd looking finch type bird, a few wax eyes....lots sparrows, blackbirds and myna... and a morepork, 2 ! These things used to keep one awake all night, 4 or 5 in every direction calling each other...
A few months back was up in the kaimia s....A couple black robins , very tame flicking around ones feet....yeap...around the campfire...couple fantails and a tui.
This is not rats mice...we have had those for years....and far whorse than current population in most areas.
Something is not right, that I know.
Espec when others are saying the same thing in the street....and like Mt Owen above. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
Current predictions are for a 9DegC temperature rise and probable loss of 50% + of all species in the next couple if hundred years, and maybe 3C rise by 2050.
Yes global climate change is a massive issue.
My comments related to the situation that exists in New Zealand associated with several causes of the decline in native species. If one flies over NZ in a plane it is easy to observe the almost total replacement of lowland forest with farms.
Introduced possum from Australia chew the flower heads and fresh foliage off many tree species, often resulting in very old trees simply dying. As well the introduced nasties likes mice,rats and stoats kill native birds.
My recent hike, or tramp as we call it here in NZ took me into a vast tract of forest that is depleted of many bird species that until recent times florished.
Not far from the area that I tramped is Lake Rotoiti. At the lake a big effort has been made to help nature recover. That project is called Friends of Rotoiti. By intensive predator control birds like the Kaka have recovered from only 7 males birds 20 years ago to a population of around 200 Kaka.
There are other similar conservation projects all over NZ. Especially on off shore islands where it is maybe more straightforward to elimate pests and return the island to its original state. A good example is Tiri Tiri Matangi just a short boat ride from Auckland city centre.
The sad bit is that most of mainland NZ is no longer home to native species like Kakariki, but dominates by introduced species. At this time of year in my area, Nelson the beech forest is alive with mice, rats and stoats. The wasps numbers are increasing at this time of year to plauge numbers. The poor native species simply cannot cope.
As an example in Febuary one beech tree will have possibly thousands of wasps on its trunk, feeding from the insect that produces honey dew.
You need to see it to fully comprehend. there are millions of beech trees and zillions and ga-zillions of wasps.
Anyway must go as a friend is doing some conservation work on there property and asked for some advice.
PS... at the end of my journey into the forest i relaxed by the river just relieved to rest up after a gruelling day of about 10 hours walking, and waited for my good wife to pick me up in the car. I lay in the sun, hat over my face. I was aware something was walking past me. I slid my hat off my face. There was a Weka staring at me and probably just about to dive into my pack. And likely dash of with some shiney booty.
There are good moments
We pushed so many species closer to the edge with the things like you mention above it just makes me think climate change will have a much bigger impact than we suspect on allready endangered species. Depressing really.
Our summers are allready getting wetter every year, floods are now the norm, growing crops is more dificult, and this train crash has hardly begun...
Me and my wife visited NZ in Feb 2011 with the strikt planinig to see kakariki in the wild.
For a year we studdied the karts and marks in "e-bird" and contacted Luis Ortiz-Catedral for the best places. Bu in our mind we never thought it such a tough aim....
But we found very beautiful places and saw lot's of birds, but really most of them in sanctuarys as Tiritiri.
In Ngaherenga Forest Park we so directly on the campground some yellowfrontet kaks and lot's of kaka, silvereyes and , haha, mosquitos.
But it was hard work, hiking days of up to 11hrs walking and interviewing the rangers for good places to see what we expected to. At least we were very lucky to see those places of NZ, but we also saw the problems.
But for a german tourist NZ is such a grandious nature-event, indeed.
Even here in germany the weather is extreme. The last few years tornados occured. Winters changes dramaticaly, mostly they show dirty, cloudy, rainy weather some degrees obove the freecingpoint and than maybe 2 weeks of extreme cold, i didn't know bevore. Last year the temperature fell below -15"C and the bigger problem was without any snow. The coldness directly touched the nature without any protective cover.
By the way 2011 germany was one of the 2 countries worldwide, with temperatures below the long temperature middle.
hi Georg. just watched your 2 x video clips.
Good to see you got around a fair bit.
On the same youtube page as the first video there is another clip ...
Kakariki, New Zealand red crowned parakeet, by bandjsellars.
Those reds were our birds in our aviary. The video taken by our friend Brian
All videos linked are on my youtube page, i think your birds are automaticaly shown, becuase i recommended it as a favorite video of me. You have beautiful birds.
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