Posts by ChrisW
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Capture: Got the blues, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Don't know what kind of tree this is, but it seems to be trying to imitate those Norfolk pines and their crosses.
The foliage detail isn't very clear, but still it seems very likely they are young deodar (deodar cedar, Wikipedia).
And though I've never made the comparison with Norfolk pine crosses myself, strange to say I only started 'seeing' these trees all over the place and finding out their name etc a few years ago when I saw their prominence in the same cemetery as those Norfolks with my grandfather's grave. There are both mature deodar likely planted around 100 years ago when the cemetery opened, and younger ones including a continuation of an avenue of Norfolks. So someone else links them together.That's an older one with the sun passing behind it late morning in mid-June, low sun angle, enough blue for this thread I reckon.
And its foliage, this time last year when the male cones were shedding remarkable amounts of pollen, the female cones from previous season there too with impressive size and form.
Interesting source in the NW Himalaya, including far reaches of Tibet. It would be an interesting question whether its planting/spread into China is recent as in decades or more ancient as in centuries ...
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Capture: Got the blues, in reply to Nora Leggs,
in the clear light of morning
Indeed - isn't it lovely!
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Capture: Got the blues, in reply to Islander,
blue Pacific – loading logs in Gisborne today.
The bird is not your common or butcher’s shop gull, but a Caspian tern (distinctly uncommon).
Caspians are relatively common in Aotearoa-NZ - I'm not sure what that gull that is and am disinclined to check.Morena Islander. Cropped/edited version of the same photo you commented on. The arrow indicates the bird I referred to, a Caspian tern. The same bird shows more clearly in the follow-up photo.
Nora's birds are not Caspians.
Agreed. They are: (photo 1) a black-backed gull, (photo 2) a black-backed gull and a red-billed gull, (photo3) a red-billed gull, nicely captured. A Caspian tern would not hang out out the back of a butcher's shop - Nora's birds are "common or [garden] butcher’s shop gulls" that my photo's bird (a Caspian tern) is not.
Caspian terns are "relatively common" in NZ relative to the critically endangered NZ fairy tern, but uncommon relative to back-backed and red-billed gulls and most other native species. Bell and Bell (2008) estimate on the basis of survey/census counts in the early 1990s that the NZ population then was about 1300 breeding pairs, and it is unlikely to have increased since. Your perspective from BigO may differ on its commonness, but those are very low numbers nationally, according with my experience.
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Capture: Got the blues, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Thanks for your logs, they're helping cut down erosion, flooding, desertification and sandstorms up here.
And they were doing not a bad job here when still attached to their roots. Perhaps contrary to the impression given by the photo.
This is half of the Tarndale 'Slip' (gully) two weeks ago. It has defeated all efforts at revegetation, but radiata pine-based forestry has stopped many smaller gullies and greatly reduced the proliferation of new gullies and slips in this incredibly erosion-prone country in the upper catchment of the Waipaoa River out the back of Gisborne.
No desertification or sandstorms either, so must be doing a good job on them too. Just pollen storms at the beginning of August. -
Yes, Caspian terns are very distinctive in appearance and behaviour, but you had only a tiny image to assess there. This was the best photo of it I managed today - oddly against that extraordinarily messy background of (another) ship's gear and a fertiliser silo - so badly cluttered I think it's quite good actually! Overview -
And detail, clearly showing the black cap and (black-tipped) red bill.
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Very summery in a blue Pacific sort of way.
More activity in the harbour and river-mouth. Even the signs are blue, though the wording is clearly ambiguous …
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Yes, the romance of the blue Pacific – loading logs in Gisborne today.
The bird is not your common or butcher’s shop gull, but a Caspian tern (distinctly uncommon).Lotsa blues, varied with assorted rust etc. The signal station shed looks like it’s being rammed, or perhaps hammered?
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Capture: Got the blues, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Tree planting, China style. But look at that sky!
Indeed, nice sky for a backdrop to the crane. Meanwhile, a quarter of the way around the Pacific, another crane against a blue sky in Gisborne this very afternoon was handlng a bundle of trees at the inverse end of the tree-planting process - the logs quite possibly bound for China.
Great light and vivid colours thanks to the spring winds. And a high of 27, too.
Good match on that one too, light, colours, high of 26, just the seasonal inversion.
Those lovely floral pinks and willow green do a great job of camouflaging the ?power station cooling towers? - nothing like them hereabouts! -
Capture: Autumn lite, in reply to Nora Leggs,
Autumn in black and white
Colourless autumn leaves? OK then -
Full colour fern, inversely silver.
Not an inverted silver fern. -
Down towards the riverbank this morning, I find I've been neglecting the bottom lawn. Oh dear.
