Animals we find

Kiri and David read our email that we needed more bugs for the frogs and got out with the boys to find some and Kiri got her garden dug over at the same time. The worms were quite deep and she says the boys tended to find them amongst the roots of the plants. She also says they all had a great time.

Lachie told me they had found hundreds, when I couldn't see them he explained they were under the dirt, they'd provided for them, and you had to dig.

Then with big brother Lachie quietly prompting him (not that he needed prompting), Kegan told me all about the pictures Kiri emailed us, making sure I noted his superman suit. The boys then helped me put the worms and grubs in with the frogs, though Kegan didn't like the grubs or the worms that were moving and got me to do those for him.

While we were in the frog house we checked on the two clutches of cellar slug eggs (our 4th and 5th clutches, since I caught big mama slug.) They haven't hatched yet, I wonder when they will?

We love getting stories and photo's from families, so send them in we'll put them in the books so the children can share them with us.

Adele and Mark's boys, William and Michael are at school now, but mum tells me they love to catch up on what's up at Kindergarten via the blog. Well I ran into Mark when I was picking my girls up from school and as a result he sent along an unusual spider, he had caught, the next day for identification, as well as swapping ideas about balloon bagpipes he loved.

A quick check in Andrew Crowe's guide to New zealand spiders, confirmed what I thought, it's a slater spider. Andrew Crowe's book does say their bite can be painful and slow to heal, so they are one to handle carefully. Avoid picking them up, better instead to let them walk onto objects. They're quite commonly found locally under stones and dirt, hunting slaters.

To demonstrate the fangs and why you should be cautious handling them, I provoked this one with the end of a pencil for a photo oppertunity, before we let it go. Even with provocation it was reluctant to bite, prefering to run and hide.

Slater Spider

Then this morning we found a dead goldfinch, by our clear covers. We think it flew in and broke it's neck, however it was missing it's tail so we weren't sure. We donned out gloves and carried out an external examination.

By checking our printout from the internet and comparing the pictures Emily, James, Beau, Caleb and I discovered it was an adult male. The mum birds having a smaller red mask, and the young ones having no mask.

NZbirds.com Wikigoldfinch

Caleb wanted it to fly, and thought it would be nice to wrap up and take home for his mum so he could share it with her. A lovely thought but we decided we better check with mum first.