Tuatara and tieke

Sometimes, when we visit Zealandia the tuatara are nowhere to be found. They like to come out to soak up the sunshine when it is out, so today I wasn’t expecting to see many.  The sun was out briefly but for the most part it was overcast while we were there.  Yet to our surprise, there were several tuatara out soaking up the rays and enjoying the warmth.

They were all sizes too, from very large to very tiny.  The smallest tuatara being more of a yellow green than the older ones.  I am assuming this is because it needs to shed its skin more often as it grows and what we saw was fresh after a shedding.  I could be totally wrong on this so please don’t quote me.

We also saw and heard lots of saddlebacks or tieke. They were everywhere we went, and for the first time in all the years I have been visiting Zealandia, I got an image that I am proud of.  Several of them in fact.  I can finally say I am happy to have a good saddleback image at last.

The rifleman will now take the place of the saddleback on my list of birds that I don’t have a good image of.  Thankfully my fellow photog is just as keen as me to visit Zealandia more often and is also keen to get great images there. So we will be making it our mission to visit as often as possible. It is always good to have a goal and being paid up members we can visit as often as we want.

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