Willowbank Wildlife Reserve

Our original plan for Labour Weekend was to drive to the west coast and visit Greymouth.  But, the weather didn't cooperate.  There have been heavy thunderstorms and a potential for snow on he west coast, so we decided to stay here on the east coast!  Crazy thought - you can drive from one cost to the other in just a few hours.  Gotta love islands!

In order to keep up with our plan to visit places as often as possible, we decided to go to the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve today. They have many endemic species, some of which are endangered. (Brian informed me that endemic means they are native to New Zealand and don't exist elsewhere).

We had a great time. They have made the reserve very family friendly.  You can feed most of the animals as you walk through, which is evident from how approachable the animals are. They remind me of our pets, always begging for a treat. Case in point:

At first I thought the goat's head was stuck. But he expertly maneuvered back out once he realized we didn't have any food!

Unfortunately we forgot our camera. I can't believe it!!! So we only had the camera phone for pictures and since I'm using an archaic Blackberry, I couldn't zoom in at all. So this is the best we could do.

Brian was our trusty guide on the adventure today!

As we first walked in, I ran into this duck. I thought it was funny he wasn't nervous to be around me. But as we walked farther in, it became less unbelievable because pretty much all the animals did it.

The first "attraction" were the "tame" eels. The sign says tame, but I'm pretty sure you still shouldn't stick your hand in the water to pet them.  These eelse used to be the most abundant source of fresh water fish in New Zealand. But over-fishing has now reduced them to a watched species.

Can you see that guy sticking his head out of the water? They would swim right up to us

While we were looking at the eels, we saw Odette and Odile. Okay those weren't their names, but they did remind me of Swan Lake. I'm think I'm going to watch it when I'm done with the blog!

"Odette"

"Odile" - I'm not sure if I've ever actually seen a black swan before...

We entered a swampy area and I couldn't believe this algae growing on the river! If I hadn't seen the birds swimming in it, I seriously would have thought it was a hard coating of some sort. I'm thinking of the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice, where the top of the volcano is covered with a fake roof that looks like a lake. I guess you would have to see it in person.

Monkey-ing Around

We had a lot of fun at a couple of the monkey enclosures. 'Monkey Island is the home of several capuchin monkeys. Oh how I wish I had my camera for some close ups! Sigh. There was one little guy who was so curious and looking around. He reminded us so much of Ike. He gave us quite a few laughs.

But the best laugh came from a Siamang Gibbon. He literally looked like a man lounging in a hammock on a sunny afternoon.  You probably can't tell from my crappy camera phone, but he is lying on his back with one knee crossed and one hand is draped over his eyes to shield the sun. Priceless!

We also saw a few other primates...

Ring Tailed Lemurs

Birds of a Feather

We saw many beautiful birds today. I thought of my Grandpa Ross as we walked through a covey of doves who were cooing their hearts out. It reminded me of sleepovers and listening to him whistle to the birds during breakfast. Even though some of the species are ducks or pheasants, they have very different and interesting coloring compared to ones we have seen previously in the US.

Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of the Kiwi birds. They were in a nocturnal type of enclosure and we could barely see them.  

The first picture is of me with a Weka bird. It was really dark so the flash washed everything out. We got a better picture of the Weka after. This was a pretty fun sighting. You lift up flaps to see into the habitat, and there was this little bird right outside the tunnel we looked through. It seemed to see us too because it hopped right into the little box and came right up to us.

Weka

Kea

Kakariki

Golden Pheasant

Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo

Cape Barron Geese

Paradise Duck

Pukeko

"Silkie" chickens

Around the barnyard

The first picture is for Richard Webb. Yes, we have now seen a wallaby! You will have to ask us about other random things from Australia when we seen you next :)

We had a pretty good laugh with the Kunekune pigs as well. This guy is asking for a handout.  When they realized we weren't going to feed them, they started grunting at us.  We grunted back and had a nice little conversation with them.  It was just like talking to Aussie!  Only he's much cuter.

Leopard Tortoises

More llamas - to my surprise again

Asian Small Clawed Otters

 And this last picture is pretty sad.  If you read my earlier post about the basketball game I went to in September, you will have read about the crazy wind storm we had that night that completely uprooted trees, carried garbage cans, etc.  The damage the wind caused to this wildlife refuge is something I hadn't thought about.  Apparently it killed several of the animals, including the ostrich in the picture below, and a few of the habitats were completely ruined.