Wildlife
On a fine calm day, especially early in the morning, visitors to Otari-Wilton's Bush will commonly be treated with sightings of lumbering kereru (wood pigeon), performing tui and rare flashes of kingfisher. Other birds that may be seen or heard during the day include fantail, paradise duck, grey warbler, chaffinch and silvereye.
This sharp photo of a Kereru (native wood pigeon) was taken by Nicole and can be found on her flickr page where there are other photos of Otari-Wilton's Bush.
Otari-Wilton's Bush is also a valuable home to several more mysterious creatures ...
At night, nocturnal residents, such as glow-worms, morepork/ruru (native owl), tree frogs and native fish (eels and banded kokopu), emerge from the woodwork. The glow-worms are easy to spot after dark, especially from the Waterfall lookout track.
A long-finned eel, photographed by Jonathan Kennett at Otari.
On most windless nights, the soulful sound of the morepork (ruru) can be heard as the birds call to each other, but these silent flying, reticent birds can be very difficult to spot.
New Zealand's native fish are even more elusive. With the help of a spotlight, brief sightings of long finned eel or banded kokopu may be had from one of the bridges across Kaiwharawhara Stream. Native fish numbers have been greatly depleted by competition from introduced trout, and road and rail culverts impede their travel up from breeding grounds at sea. The Otari-Wilton's Bush Trust has begun restoring the streamside to encourage more native fish to Otari.
Kaiwharawhara Stream is home to the banded kokopu, a native fish of New Zealand.
Photo by Jonathan Kennett.
Smaller creatures such as forest geckos, stick insects, dragonflies and weta, are harder to spot, but they are present in large numbers and never fail to fascinate, or shock us, whenever they are seen.
The weta is one of New Zealand's larger and more mesmerising insects.
Photo by Jonathan Kennett.
This spiny-backed stick insect was found on Site 3 when the Global Volunteers were doing their monthly monitoring of tree growth. There are several completely different types of stick insect to be found at Otari-Wiltons Bush.
The photo was by Hannah Proctor.
Photo taken on the information deck at Otari by Robyn Smith.
The puriri moth is New Zealand's largest and perhaps most impressive forest moth - attaining up to 15 centimetres in wingspan. As its name suggests, the puriri moth caterpillar is commonly hosted in puriri trees, but it also favours beech trees, putaputaweta and wineberry. Once the caterpillar makes the transformation to adulthood, the lifecycle of the puriri moth accelerates, and a lucky moth (one that has been able to dodge the canny eye of a morepork) will generally live for about two days.
Unwelcome Visitors
These include, rabbits in the valley, goats on the hills, possums everywhere, dogs that are not on leads and cats escaping domestic control. Wellington City Council staff rigorously control all of these threats to our vulnerable native habitats.
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