After days of torrential rain, stepping outside into the bush is so rewarding. The track slides beneath my boots, slick with mud a loose gravel. I walk slowly so I don’t fall flat on my face. This has its benefits, by taking the time to watch each step, I start to notice the things at ground level I might normally miss.

“Nearby is the South Georgia pintail, with bright yellow bill and cartoonishly round head. South Georgia lacks the lush plant and invertebrate life we have here on Waiheke, so the pintail forages his feed on the scraps of king penguin bones. They dabble in the shallow water and waddle in groups amongst the four-ton elephant seals.”

“The unmissable trill of their descending call stops me in my pace. Above me is a flowering manuka tree, and hopping between its branches are a flurry of grey feathers. They are a monotone of moody clouds, with flashes of white on their tails and a speck of red in their eyes. I could fit all three of them in the palm of my hand they are so small.”

“It’s another cold morning in the bush, I sling my pack to the ground and take a moment for a drink and a bite to eat beneath a canopy of gently swaying kanuka. As I lay back into the carex grasses, I realise that the branches are not swaying from the wind, but from the hopping of tiny green birds from branch to branch.”

Not much in the bush will give me a fright, I love all…most…of the creatures I come across on my missions through our ngahere. This was tested when I shifted one of our traps and was very quickly confronted by a large, grumpy, brown spider with her eyes fixed directly on me.

There are a few precious taonga species remaining on my list of those yet to see. One had eluded me my whole life, until a crisp dusk this past Easter weekend. Just a few minutes out of town, we stood warming our hands in our pockets by the Whakapapa river bridge, a short drive north of Mt Ruapehu. Having been serenaded all evening by whio, or blue duck, and the rush of the river, we looked up towards the tall, dense forest towering above us.

It is not uncommon for the twig that has fallen on to your outdoor dining table, or is stuck to your kitchen window, to actually be a rō, or stick insect. Aotearoa has around 20 different species, all with the same remarkable camouflage in shades of brown and bright green.