It’s been a while since I told you some stories about the animals we interact with here on the farm. But I’ve collected a few, so now seems like a good time for another installment.

These are almost-never fully-rounded stories, which usually end up becoming stand-alone blogs. So they might feel a bit open-ended. They are just little snapshots of things we’ve experienced.

You can find the other posts in the series here:

• Part one (2019)
• Part two (2020)
• Part three (2021)

The good news is there’s no content warnings on this one!

Kiwi!!

I realised while reading the previous editions of this series that I’d never updated the blog itself with footage of the kiwi we have found in our bush block.

We confirmed their presence back in 2021 because we could hear them. So for my birthday that year, Dad got us a hunting camera.

It’s taken years to learn how to capture kiwi footage specifically. The trick—we think we’ve figured out—is to put the camera at knee height.

And now we’ve had a few video captures.

Absolutely always an exciting moment when the kiwi comes on screen. We review the camera footage on the TV from bed and both shout “kiwi!” in delight when it happens.

The egg stash

I was out throwing the ball for the dogs when Roxy just… disappeared.

I called for her a couple of times, but she wasn’t responding. She had just been right there so I assumed she wasn’t far away, but had found something more interesting than the ball. That could only mean one thing.

My suspicions were confirmed when she appeared around a corner with an egg in her mouth.

Like a good girl, she dropped the egg, looking at me to see if I’d let her have it.

Not that I had a chance. Hine had lost interest in the ball and stole that egg in 2 seconds flat.

Still, I figured if there was one, there was probably 20. Turns out there was 25, including the one Hine stole. That’s them at the top of the page there.

I gave Roxy a replacement egg and used my shirt to gather the rest and take them inside for a float test. They all passed, meaning they’re probably safe to eat.

When this happens, we still eat the eggs. We’re just more cautious to crack them into a cup or bowl before going in with other food.

Are you a weka?

Richard’s quad bike was playing up and he needed a ride to the top of the lane to catch his ride into work.

As I was driving back down, I spotted a bird I didn’t recognise in the middle of the road.

It was as big as a chicken, and brown. It stood upright, rather than flatter to the ground like a pheasant. My only frame of reference was a weka which I met in Kororāreka a few years ago. Puzzled, I stopped the car to try get a better look.

I leaned out the window. It ran across the driveway and peered at me from behind a tall clump of grass.

“You look a lot like a weka” I said to it. “Are you a weka? You can’t be a weka, surely. But you look a lot like a weka!”

It ducked behind the grass as I reached for my phone to get a photo.

I got home and emailed my father, who knows much more about these things than I do. He confirmed it probably wasn’t a weka (because they’re flightless, and the ones in Kororāreka were released there in 2002).

Dad suggested it could be a buff-banded rail, spotless crake, or a marsh crake.

Spotless crakes have the wrong colouring, and I’m pretty sure our friend is larger than a marsh crake. But a buff-banded rail might be a possibility, and they are related to weka.

It could be easily confused for a female pheasant, and I guess maybe it’s a weird pheasant. Except for the fact my brain recognises female pheasant, and it tells me that’s not what this is.

Both Richard and I have seen it a few times since. He agrees it’s not a pheasant, but isn’t convinced it’s a rail. Neither of us have succeeded in getting a photo to date. We have both seen it fly short distances indicating it’s definitely not a weka.

So it remains unidentified for now, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out eventually.

The mystery dog

Imagine waking up from a nap and hearing what is very definitely a strange-dog’s pant under your window.

You know it’s not your dog, because both of them are looking at you, and you also know you didn’t imagine it because both of your dogs very clearly heard it as well.

So you (all) go outside to investigate. And under the house you find a strange dog. Perhaps it’s not that weird if you live in suburbia with lots of neighbours and neighbourhood dogs, but we live in a place you probably won’t find unless you’re specifically looking to find us. It’s not a place people (or dogs) routinely meander into.

We know all the neighbourhood dogs. This was a completely unknown dog, just chilling.

He was wearing a GPS tracker which made us think he was a pig dog, and after sniffing me out, just curled up between my legs for snuggles!

We could hear someone whistling faintly on the wind, so Richard went out over the back paddock to try find them (while wearing his jandals). They yelled at each other through the bush, and Pango’s human jumped in his truck to drive up and collect him.

It’s not a straight journey by car, you have to go around. So he was at least 15-20 minutes away. And there’s three locked gates between us and the main road. So we loaded our new friend into the boot of the car, and took him up to wait.

It was a little weird, waiting there for a stranger to show up to pick up a dog which seemed intent on moving in with us. But soon enough a truck came down the driveway, and you just know when a dog sees their owner, eh?

The owner explained they had been hunting on the other side of the river, and wee Pango had taken off after a pig. We think that he caught the scent of Roxy and Hine, who had been out earlier in the day with Richard, and followed it up to our place after losing the pig.

Everyone behaved themselves, no-one was hurt, and mostly we were just glad the universe wasn’t sending us yet another dog.