The Down Side of Remote Pacific Islands – The Disappearing Species of Hawai’i.

The Hawaiian Islands were formed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean by tumultuous volcanic activity - this is still happening and is presently centred on the Big Island, Hawai'i. Mt Kilauea on the south-east side of this island remains active and has been spewing lava almost continuously since 1984. Put simply, Hawaii is moving steadily over a hot spot that lies beneath the Pacific Plate. To the west and more central to the island is the volcanic mass of Mauna Loa which rises just short of 13,700 feet; it has erupted only twice since 1950: once in 1975 for a day, and…

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Hummingbirds – They’re Almost as ‘Big’ as Africa!

I was out in the garden yesterday trying to convince plants to grow when I was buzzed by a drone - an exceedingly stealthy one. I didn’t see it, but certainly I heard it, hovering behind my head before making off at speed. My wife sitting in a nearby lounger was able to make a more realistic observation - I was standing on the flight path of a rufous hummingbird, a creature weighing no more than a spoonful of sugar... it was attempting to visit a bee balm flower. Not quite a drone then, but even the most technically advanced…

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So Long New Zealand and Thanks For All the Sheep. Part 2.

Any European botanist arriving in New Zealand for the first time might just as well be landing on a different planet - so extraordinarily is the plant life on these South Pacific islands. It took four or five years to see any positive results when trying to establish our native New Zealand garden. The one thing that grew easily was flax, and this was encouraging, because I'd seen nectar feeding birds visiting flax flowers elsewhere - so, it wasn't difficult to join up the dots... soon I was dividing and planting out as many locally grown flax as I could…

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