phillipcochrane's Identifications

This little male in full breeding plumage is the male which, with it's mate, I have been following since finding their nest with new-laid eggs in it. They produced three chicks from three eggs but on this visit I noted they were down to just one. With the large numbers of karoro (black-backed gull) and feral and domestic cats at Ashley, it must be hard for dotterels to bring a full brood through in a season.

As at my last observation, there seems to be a lot of unaccompanied males at Ashley at the moment, with the mated males being extremely territorial with lots of minor scraps between the mated and unmated males.

This is a climber that I cannot identify. It is next to State Highway 6 a few kilometres from Kawatiri Junction. I am fairly sure that it is not native and it looks like it is pretty keen on the idea of spreading.

I notified DOC but did not get a reply.