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The highlight of my night at Trotter's Gorge!!! Was delighted. A rare species I was hoping would turn up after I noted a prior record from Brian Patrick and I also found the host plant mountain carrot (Gingidia montana) growing in the area. Two of them actually came to light and were captured but I only got one photo of the underside of the second individual (last image) before accidentally setting it free prior to its photo session! Never mind, delighted with the first one!

X marks the spot! The highlight of the night was seeing this beautiful moth arrive 2.5 hours after the lights were turned on (lights on at 6 pm, moth arrived at about 8:30 pm). I didn't know they would be at this site and wasn't expecting them to be out at this time of year either. There must be some Streblus heterophyllus in the bush. Several photos of the moth and a few of my setup and the view at the end. Great spot! Yay!!! That is Meterana species number 22 for me (incl. the undescribed 'Urtica' one).

Observed (and just caught on the dashcam) a hawk nailing a pigeon that was sitting on the ground in this field — very lucky to see!

There's been a huge flock of pigeons in the field for a few months now, and often I see hawks hanging around... so stoked to see one in action though. I'm having some difficulty uploading a gif that demonstrates the behaviour a little more clearly.
Update: appears to have uploaded now, but it might take a minute to load fully before you can watch it — might work better if you view the image detail page.

Growing in rubble, 20+ individuals of NZ magpie moth feeding on the one plant. Surrounding senecio plants had no individuals. edit: no catepillars were found on immediate surrounding plants, 10-20m further down oxford terrace there were more plants with lots of individuals. This plant had the most individuals.

Freshly dead adult Invisible Rail. Photographed at Foli, Halmahera, Indonesia on 18 October 2011. Detail of the head and bill. This unfortunate individual had been caught in a snare set out for scrubfowl just a day or so before we arrived at Foli. It was still in remarkably good condition considering the extreme humidity.

Hi folks,
This is an image that has been sent to me for a guess at id.
The thing that puzzles me is they say the body length is 16cm give or take a cm.
Someone I trust to get it right.
It's on a railway sleeper so does give some idea of size.
It's not our big dudes Argosarchus ?
To me it looks like Clitarchus hookeri, but they dont get that big ??
Any thoughts O knowledgeable ones ???

Edit :
The sleeper has been measured at 18cm.
So 15 or 16cm is still the measurement thought.
New better image added.

Habitat - Near a natural water source
How many? - 5 (2 adulta and 3 chicks)
Additional comments? - there were quite a few familes of cape barrens around on churchill island, various ages of the chicks. and they were clearly used to people being in close proximity. these guys walked right up behind me. were it not for the occasional honk i wouldnt have turned around to see them.
Nest present - No
Behavior - Bird with chicks

Locality is obscured of course, but the vague location is in central, western Fiordland. Well over 50 km away from any other known Mokopirirakau gecko populations and between the known distributions of Takitimu gecko and Cascade gecko. To my eye some traits point to Takitimu gecko (such as a short tail relative to SVL and a pink tongue), but genetic testing next winter will be needed to help place this population.

First iNaturalist record.

With Graham Armstrong, Pete Ellis, Steve Guy, Guy Langan, Paul Harvey, Phil Heath, Ian Lewis.

Seen for more than an hour after dawn, in a small loose group of Eur. Curlews, feeding in a short-grass field on the south side of the main lake. This was "limpy" - the bird that had been shot about 3 weeks earlier, but seemed to make a recovery.

This location is the last known wintering site for this species. The last record from here was in February 1995.

Here is a link to the last video taken at this site, in January 1995:

http://www.hbw.com/ibc/video/slender-billed-curlew-numenius-tenuirostris/bird-foraging-short-grass

A flock of gull-bird tern in adult breeding plumage circled me for several minutes calling loudly during a visit to Kaituna Lagoon end of Lake Ellesmere. Associating strongly with caspian tern and black-billed gulls. Interestingly their calling and circling behaviour was a virtual mimic of the caspian terns which had a breeding colony with young chicks present nearby to protect, something the gull-bills would not have had.