Weka - Gallirallus australis

Weka are a flightless NZ native. They are of the rail family. This image is SOOC. She kept getting too close to get a really decent capture of her! (actually I have no idea whether this is a he or a she - don't know how to tell them apart) See her closer.

Kiwilizzie, Adrienne and I did the walk up to Lake Matiri today - it was a 10km round trip with some fairly varied track quality - including having to rock hop along a couple of river beds.

A great walk and the first time I (or Kiwilizzie) have seen the lake as the only way to see it is to walk - see, there are some advantages in getting fitter and being able to walk places. A beautiful area that my photos didn't do justice to - possibly because of me ducking and diving in an attempt to out-manoeuvre the voracious sandflies.

On the way back this weka came along the track towards us. It wasn't particularly scared of us - in fact it had a peck at Adrienne's shoelaces and then at her leg. Adrienne has been to the lake a number of times before and she mentioned that she's never seen a weka there before.