This is the bird we call Dent Head.
We first saw Dent Head visiting our garden in October 2021. He had such a colossal head injury that we didn't expect he'd last long.
Instead, his head has healed (sort of) and he's been a regular visitor to our garden ever since.
Here's Dent Head yesterday, feeding from one of our sugar water feeders while I was hanging out laundry less than 2 metres away.
#birds #Kōtare #kingfisher #Kōmako #Korimako #Bellbird
This morning's walk included seeing three kōtare and a korimako, as well as countless tūī, and various other song birds. I stood looking up to find which bird was exercising its vocal range and marvelled at all the trills and sounds coming from one small camouflaged bird.
#grateful #alttext #alttextponderings
I also spotted a New Zealand Bellbird. It doesn’t sound anything like a bell though. Very active sipping nectar from the new flowers.
Here are the amazing musical sounds of our Ōtautahi garden this afternoon. About five male korimako (NZ bellbirds) gathered to out-sing the blustery wind.
They sang non-stop for over 15 minutes! I've just put a snippet here. Be sure to wait 20 seconds for them all to sing together.
If you want the full concerto performance, I've put that on #iNaturalistNZ
I’m very slowly starting to post photos from my trip to New Zealand a couple of months ago…
This is one of my favourites. A bellbird, or korimako (as far as I’m aware). This was such a chance shot as well, we were hiking along a trail, I saw it out of the corner of my eye and I moved very carefully & quickly to get a stable shot before it flew away!
I think I literally got this one shot of this bird and that’s it before it was gone.
Here's a map of all the korimako (bellbirds) I saw and heard in 2022 along my standard run routes through Ōtautahi-Christchurch. Korimako are endemic forest birds that are common in the forests and hill suburbs of Port Hills. They're also now well established in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, and have recently settled into the planted tree patches in the Wigram Retention basin area. They remain rare in the flat suburbs.
#EcologicalMonitoring #WildCounts #Birds #AotearoaNZ #bellbird #korimako