What better thing to do on a grey rainy day that hang out with friends drinking (sugar water)?

The 1st of January 2026 has been a grey rainy day in Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ, and that's kept our garden sugar water feeders busy with korimako (NZ bellbirds) and silvereyes.

That's included visits from a couple of banded korimako, Right Red and Right Blue Green, whom we've not seen in our garden since mid-August. They were both regular visitors over the winter months and my guess is they both headed up into the Port Hills bush reserves during the Spring to breed.

Right Red was banded in our garden back in March 2022, and Right Blue Green was banded in our garden in July 2024 (both by my wife who's a certified Level 3 bird bander).

I made 29 observations today of bellbirds seen at our feeders, and that included Right Red twice and Right Blue-Green once, one juvenile once, and all the rest unbanded males.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations?on=2026-01-01&place_id=6803&taxon_id=12612&user_id=jon_sullivan&verifiable=any

#bellbirds #korimako #nz #SugarWaterFeeder #GardenBirds #birds #Christchurch

The kōwhai trees are in fabulous full bloom across Ōtautahi-Christchurch city, NZ. They're blooming about a month late this year and are making up for that with a huge number of flowers.

That's making the korimako and kererū in the Cashmere hills happy. The korimako are pollinating the kōwhai flowers, which I guess also makes the kōwhai happy, to the extent that a kōwhai tree can be happy. The kererū, on the other hand, are eating the kowhai's flowers and young leaves.

korimako: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/315198237
kererū: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/315196715

#NZ #nature #Christchurch #Ōtautahi #birds #pollination #herbivory #Anthornis #Hemiphaga #kererū #korimako

Here's a male korimako (NZ bellbird) I photographed singing in our garden in Ōtautahi-Christchurch. I just uploaded it to #iNaturalistNZ. (It's a rainy Saturday morning so I'm working through some of my backlog of photos.)

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/264387321

#birds #nz #Ōtautahi #korimako #singing #Anthornis

This is the bird we call Dent Head.

We first saw Dent Head visiting our garden in October 2021. He had such a colossal head injury that we didn't expect he'd last long.

Instead, his head has healed (sort of) and he's been a regular visitor to our garden ever since.

Here's Dent Head yesterday, feeding from one of our sugar water feeders while I was hanging out laundry less than 2 metres away.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/260354173

#nz #korimako #bellbird #birds #nature #Anthornis #Ōtautahi

#birds #Kōtare #kingfisher #Kōmako #Korimako #Bellbird

This morning's walk included seeing three kōtare and a korimako, as well as countless tūī, and various other song birds. I stood looking up to find which bird was exercising its vocal range and marvelled at all the trills and sounds coming from one small camouflaged bird.
#grateful #alttext #alttextponderings

#walkies #birdwatching #Kōtare #Korimako #Tūī #flowers #blossoms

What a beautiful morning walk, bellbird, kingfisher and tūī to enjoy, paradise ducks on the river, blossoms out, trees just starting to get new leaves and only a little bit of rain starting to fall.

#grateful

Another #Bird photo! Tired of them already? There’s plenty more coming!

This is another #Korimako ( #Bellbird).

Based on the date, I think this was taken at #LakeMatheson (I took a lot of bird photos there).

#NewZealand #BirdPhotography #Birds #Nature #NaturePhotography #photography #BirdsOfMastodon

I’m very slowly starting to post photos from my trip to New Zealand a couple of months ago…

This is one of my favourites. A bellbird, or korimako (as far as I’m aware). This was such a chance shot as well, we were hiking along a trail, I saw it out of the corner of my eye and I moved very carefully & quickly to get a stable shot before it flew away!

I think I literally got this one shot of this bird and that’s it before it was gone.

#bird #birds #birding #BirdPhotography #BirdLovers #BirdsOfMastodon #BirdWatching #bellbird #korimako