thomasjwalsh's Journal

This weekend went on a fishing and photography trip to d'Urville Island. I launched my kayak at French Pass and was soon on my way across.

There was around 20 gannets and hundreds of other seabirds. ( A few observations made). Saw a spread out work up in Catherine cove. Mainly Kahawai and Barracouta chasing baitfish. From time to the couta would leap out of the water as they hunted. This workup reformed Sunday morning.

The fishing was slow with only Barracouta, Kahawai, Small Blue Cod and sea perch being caught.

On Sunday morning, the local seals went out on a hunt and caught several large Kahawai, they were ripping them apart in the water which caused a massive feeding frenzy with all the birds trying to steal a feed.

Saturday night looked for insects to photograph in the bush behind the DOC campground at Lucky Bay. They were a bit hard to find at first, but ended up finding quite a selection. I uploaded many as observations.

There was a lot of fairly old looking whitebait in the small stream, after dark saw a couple of freshwater crayfish.

Decided to take a walk around our native plantings and established trees to see wither I could locate any of the insects which I saw the previous night in the established native bush in the sounds.

There was a lot of spiders, slaters, Snails, a slug, a couple of cockroaches, Earwigs, brown beetles, cave wetas ,to many moths, eels in the creek, I spooked Pukes and Golden Pheasants from their roosts. Had a cat follow me around. The cockroaches were likely the only possible match.

Probably saw more insects here then I did in the bush.

Did not take many photos,would upload a few observations tomorrow.