I have been asked to supply a photo of a tui feeding on totara fruit for an author writing a book about the totara tree. The tui is the main method of seed dispersion for the totara tree (I just learned that) and the fruit appear in March so today I set off to get the required shot. I know lots about birds but not really about trees which is why I wasted half the morning photographing tuis feeding on kahikatea fruit.
The fruit look similar but I got the tree wrong - I knew it shouldn't have been that easy. So then I went looking for totara trees. I found some near the Awatapu lagoon - no fruit. There were some at the rose gardens - no fruit. A totara in the neighbours section - no fruit. Mum suggested the cemetary so after lunch thats where we went.
Cemetaries are strange places, plastic flowers and little angels. A magpie wandered amongst the graves. Lots of people hate magpies. I don't really mind them, I especially like their black and white markings.
Mum wandered around looking at headstones seeing people she once knew, saying "oh here's so and so", and "oh look, there's poor old such and such." And I pretended I remembered who they were and just wandered around feeling gloomy. After watching the Christchurch earthquake on tv for the last week or so its hard not to feel glum at best.
I found some totara, one even had a fruit on it. ONE fruit between all those trees! Bizarre looking thing it was too. End on it looked like an alien so I added a mouth to it to cheer myself up.
Double click to enlarge, it looks kinda cute.
Oh I forgot, I got a new computer! My first ever brand new one. Its whizzy fast. I gotta make sure I keep the new keyboard free from crumbs.
