Lights

Tuna (long finned eel) cleverly projected onto the pavement - don't step on it!

Weta (no English name that I know of) - normally about the size of an adult human hand - this one projected on a mossy embankment

Kereru (NZ native wood pigeon)

It's a bit cheeky posting lights for a Nature Friday post (and I have plenty of other nature candidates) but we went to a lights display at Pelorus Bridge/Te Hoiere* for Matariki two weeks ago and part of the event was a tour of the local program to protect the remaining local population of native long-tailed bats (pekapwka) and endeavour to restore them to a more healthy number.

I have no photos of bats. They are tiny and elusive. Protecting them involves trapping out rats, stoats and possums so I was interested in their levels of success and whether there was anything we could learn to use in our efforts to trap and reduce introduced-predators here in the bay.

NZ Conservation website photo

Pekapeka - the New Zealand long-tailed bat

*Over the last 2 or 3 decades New Zealand has made an effort to give recognition to the place names that had existed in the country when Europeans arrived. It is only in rare cases that European names have been swapped out completely (Mount Egmont reverted to Taranaki - I know no one who is sorry).  The towns I grew up in or close to had Maori names anyway (Te Anau, Owaka, Waimate, Timaru, Oamaru) so we are not unfamiliar with original place names. However more places with English names are using both - Nelson/Whakatu  or Ashburton/Hakatere - for instance.  Te Hoiere is the Pelorus Sound and the river that creates it (Pelorus River to those of European descent).