Owner: NHNZ Images News URL:http://nhnzimages-news.blogspot.com Join Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 18:01:10 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: This monthly newsletter discusses topics of interest to the footage industry. NHNZ Images has over 30 years experience in the footage industry, specialises in stockshot footage from television documentary films produced by NHNZ and is also the agent for r Site statistics:Click here
Penguins with Parrots on the side 2008-03-30 20:06:00 You don't normally expect to find penguins which are essentially a cold water species to mix with parrots which are essentially birds of tropical climes. However, on a lot of New Zealand's sub-antarctic islands such a mixture is relatively common. Red-crowned parakeets are found widespread on many Pacific islands, including the main islands of New Zealand itself. Here they make companions for rock-hopper penguins. On the Antipodes Islands can be found the Antipodes Island parakeet which has lost it's red-crown, and is endemic to the island group. The Antipodes Islands lie some 650 kilometres to the southeast of the southern extremity of the South Island - Stewart Island - of New Zealand. They were first charted in 1800 by Captain Henry Waterhouse of British ship HMS Reliance. Like m Read more:Penguins
, Parrots
Langur Monkey Business 2008-03-30 20:05:00 Not far beyond Jodphur's dusty sprawl lies the semi-desert, Rajasthan of India. It's not the sort of place one expects to find monkeys. But they can live here because the sandstone landscape, with its natural hollows, traps and ponds, the life-giving monsoon rains. This ground water allows several species of cacti and thorny bush to grow here. The monkeys utilise flowers, leaves, seed pods, almost anything. But life isn't easy for them. They live on the edge of an expanding sea of desert where there's little to eat during the dry months of the year.Grey langur monkeys are also known as Hanuman langurs, after the Hindu monkey-god Hanuman, and live in large groups.Check out other interesting, intriguing and arresting images from the NHNZ Images Stockshot Library. Read more:Business
Coral atoll 2008-03-30 20:04:00 Reefs are the largest living structures in the world and the work of animals scarcely visible to the naked eye. Built on the slopes around the exposed peak of an underwater mountain, layer upon layer of coral skeletons accumulate, building a reef that can surround the island enclosing a lagoon. Coral
animals play a great role by enlarging an island, consolidating its presence. The tentacles and mouths of polyps by the million strain the food from the sea, and secrete hard calcareous skeletons below and around themselves. Side by side and linked by flimsy tissues, they sit in tiny hollows into which they can withdraw, and in a concerted effort they build the magnificent edifice of a coral reef. If the sea level rises, or the seamount subsides, the island may sink from sight leaving onl
Kagu - your questions answered 2008-03-30 20:03:00 The Kagu ... this male is defending its own piece of island. Seeing another male, he is fluffed up to appear larger and stronger. The intruder is attempting a challenge, but the defender is a formidable spectacle and soon the crest falls and both get on with being their secretive selves in the forests of New Caledonia.But what is the kagu? No one is really sure. At a glance it might be a kind of rail - they certainly flick their tails like one. They also behave a little like cranes, but despite having wings are unable to fly. As yet, scientifically, the kagu stands alone - unique to New Caledonia and with few fossil clues to its ancestry.There are several curious features of these tiny outlying islands, and of New Caledonia itself, which suggest the ancestors of the kagu may have walk Read more:questions
Mourning Gecko 2008-03-30 20:02:00 This baby mourning gecko has hatched from an egg that was never fertilised. The female reproduces asexually, laying two eggs without a male gecko participating. Indeed, male mourning geckos have never been found. Young geckos are genetic replicas of their mothers. There is no particular season for breeding as the geckos are able to lay eggs at any time through the year. (This still is from an NHNZ Images movie clip).Mourning
geckos are found closely associated with humans, and have often been accidentally moved from island to island throughout the Pacific in luggage and household effects. At night they are seen commonly scampering around the house looking for cockroaches, beetles and other insect prey. But where there are populations of the larger house gecko, or the house gecko moves in, Read more:Gecko
Mount Cook, New Zealand 2008-03-30 20:01:00 Mount Cook is New Zealand
's highest mountain. At 3754m it, like the rest of the Southern Alps, is a young mountain and is still growing at a rate of about 10mm a year. In 1981 a massive avalanche rock-fall knocked 20m off its height. There are 27 other peaks over 3050m in the eponymous National Park, which form the spine of the Southern Alps.This still from an NHNZ Images movie clip shows the almost always present clouds. The prevailing westerlies are squeezed up by the mountains causing them to dump their rain load on the western side and accelerate down the eastern side of the Alps to produce very dry blustery gales across the Canterbury Plains.Did Captain Cook ever see 'his' mountain? Probably not. He passed by twice in 1770 and 1773 but on both occasions southwest gales or drizzle and Read more:New Zealand
Wide Mouthed Frog - not a joke 2008-03-30 19:54:00 Argentinian horned frogs or toads are also called wide mouthed frogs. No, not because of the joke (which I'm not going to tell here), but because they indeed have a very wide mouth! It's a nickname that applies to several different species of Ceratophyrs genus. They breed in seasonal pools in the Chacoan desert of Argentina, are voracious predators, and will eat anything that is smaller in size than they are; this includes members of their own species. (This image is taken from an NHNZ Images movie clip). Indeed, if they weren't ambushing other passing frogs they would eat out a territory and the end result would be a sterile environment with nothing but the predator. They have been known to cram in so much food that their stomachs literally rip from overeating. In this "frog eat frog"
Mollymawks on the Bounty Islands 2008-03-30 19:53:00 In cold southern seas mollymawks roam great distances. They are small albatrosses and nest in very crowded colonies. They cram onto the BountyIslands
four hundred miles east of New Zealand's South Island. Seven hundred and fifty thousand gaze out from this tiny outpost of continental granite jutting from a stormy sea. They are strong fliers and quite often find landing difficult, this still from an NHNZ Images movie clip shows one just beginning to land.There are no plants other than seaweeds, lichens and such on any of the Bounty Island group. They seem to have rejected any colonisation by grasses, bushes and trees. Only seabirds cling to the ledges of their city without flowers. What more security could a mollymawk have than this fortress of a nursery? Other than mollymawks and penguins
Birds of Paradise 2008-03-30 19:47:00 The most astonishingly dramatic and colourful birds of the air are with out doubt the birds of paradise, from Papua New Guinea and northern Australia. This still of a lesser bird of paradise Paradisaea minor is from an NHNZ Images movie clip.It's the males that dazzle with song, colour and acrobatics, much as those picture wing flies of Hawaii impress their females, which I wrote about last week. These plumed birds of paradise assemble at display grounds, called leks, to entice a female with their spectacular advertising. Her eye is most likely to be caught by the most flamboyant of these extravaganzas.They are the very opposite of discrete, but attract no predators. Very few ever existed in the treetops of New Guinea. For millions of years the 28 kinds of birds of paradise evolved in comp Read more:Birds
, Paradise
Picture Winged Flies 2008-03-30 19:45:00 Two kinds of fruit fly accidentally arrived in Hawaii long ago when these oceanic islands were young. From them more than 800 species known as picture wings are believed to be descended, some well known, others awaiting investigation or even discovery. Picture
wing flies have striking black and white patterns on their wings, and are larger than many of the others.Several different kinds of picture wings live together in the same patch of forest. So what stops them interbreeding? The answer lies in their bizarre courtship rituals and contests, for which males of each kind have their own special body design and behaviour.These males are fighting for the right to mate with a female of their type. In this trial of strength each contestant recognises the body and body language of its rival. So Read more:Winged
, Flies
Devil in the trees 2008-03-30 19:42:00 'Devil
in the trees' is the local New Caledonian name for the giant gecko because of the growling noises that it makes. On the island of New Caledonia the giant gecko has grown larger, up to one foot long, because here no other animal competed with it for food or space - and it had few predators. New Caledonia was originally part of the super continent Gondwana until about 60 million years ago when it broke apart and remnants drifted to their current positions. On mainland Australia (the nearest Gondwana remnant) a pouched mammal occupies the place of the giant gecko in the forest. It is only because marsupials did not cross to New Caledonia that these geckos have been able to live here and grow as big. Confined to this time capsule in the Pacific, it's been able to evo
Mine, Mine, Mine 2008-03-30 19:41:00 On the way to work this morning I saw two or three gulls squabbling over a juicy piece of goodness knows what, toast probably, right in the main street. Dunedin is a coastal town so gulls are a common sight, ours are smartly coloured with red legs and feet, red beaks and a red ring round the eye. In New Zealand they are known appropriately enough as red billed gulls, whilst in Australia as silver gulls.In common with gulls everywhere they have adapted well to the built environment, and can be found quite far inland following tractors as they plough fields, or scavenging on rubbish tips. The movie Nemo certainly caught the essence of gull-dom with the animated creatures squabbling and continually crying "Mine, mine, mine" as this still from an NHNZ Images movie clip shows.NHNZ Images h
Snow Leopard 2008-03-30 19:38:00 The snow leopard is a specialist mountaineer. It has short legs and its ears and testicles are drawn deep into its multi-layered fur coat. In extreme cold, it will wrap itself in its long lush tail, like a woolly scarf. Its lungs are large and the nose cavity is enlarged, to make the most of the thin air and lack of oxygen.During winter prey has become scarce with small animals in hibernation, so their primary prey is the bharal a large mountain sheep. Snow leopards are seldom so exposed in daylight. In direct sun, they quickly overheat beneath their very thick fur. They live high in the Himalayas, preferring bare rock as their spotted coat is well camouflaged. Snow leopards are an endangered species, the threats are varied; hunted for their pelt, bones and other body parts for Asian m Read more:Leopard
Bird-catching tree 2008-03-30 19:36:00 A tree that actively catches birds to provide extra nutrition for itself sounds unlikely, but that is exactly the strategy adopted by tropical Pisonia trees.On Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef, some seventy thousand black noddy terns breed. The birds use the pisonia tree and the tree uses the birds. The noddies nest in the bird catching tree. Pisonia fruits are equipped with tiny barbs and are also exceptionally sticky. They cling readily to the feathers of the birds. Everywhere the noddy goes the Pisonia goes as well, that's the plan. If the tern fails to unhitch the would-be travellers, the fruits may be carried to other islands by the hijacked bird. But many a noddy comes to a sticky end. The fruits can be over efficient at clinging; binding the bird feathers so that flight is im
Sheep Shearing on an Iceberg 2008-04-02 17:53:00 Icebergs and sheep! A strange combination even for New Zealand, renowned for its woolly quadrupeds. This footage results from two rather unusual events.In November 2006, icebergs were sighted 60 kilometres off the Dunedin coast, on the eastern side of New Zealand. This was a rare enough event in itself. It was thought that the parent of these icebergs had broken off the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica six years previously and was disintegrating as it was carried by ocean currents far from home. Although visible from the hills around Dunedin to the naked eye, binoculars were better. But NHNZ staff decided to take to the air for an even better look. And some stunning shots resulted.They weren't the only ones making the most of the unusual occurrence…Shrek, a merino sheep who shot to &quo Read more:Sheep
, Iceberg
Monkey Dance 2008-04-02 17:51:00 The island of Bali. A bewildering patchwork of colours and contrasts. An intricate Hindu civilisation prospers based on a strong belief in the cosmic cycles of the gods. Temples dominate the Balinese landscape. Strangely these places of worship are protected by troops. Troops of monkeys the sacred descendants of an all powerful monkey god named Hanuman.On Bali's rugged west coast at the temple of Ulawatu, the monkeys take human form, they are the chorus and heroes of the Kechak or monkey dance. In the monkey dance the divine Prince Rama and his beautiful wife Sita are the central characters of the great Hindu epic the Ramayana.
One day while in the forest a golden deer appears before them. Rama sets off stalking it through the forest. But Sita left alone in a magic circle of protection r Read more:Dance
Oomurasaki Butterfly 2008-04-02 17:50:00 Oomurasaki, the Japanese Purple Emperor, is the National butterfly of Japan.A tiny caterpillar climbs up from the leaf litter where it hibernated over winter.But the colours that were a perfect camouflage in autumn will soon be dangerously conspicuous, for the caterpillar is climbing back into a changing world.To survive, the caterpillar must follow suit.Responding, like the forest, to the lengthening hours of daylight and the rising temperature, it sheds the skin that looks like a dead leaf and assumes the colours of a spring leaf. The caterpillar mimics the leaves on which it will keep feeding until it undergoes its final transformation into a butterfly of summer.The caterpillar that emerged from the leaf litter has grown large and plump. Triggered by a combination of the rising temperat Read more:Butterfly
Tapa: To Wear or Not to Wear? 2008-04-02 17:19:00 Tapa cloth (or simply tapa) is a bark cloth made in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, primarily in Tonga and Samoa, but as far afield as Java, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. In French Polynesia it has completely disappeared, except for some villages in the Marquesas.The cloth is known by a number of local names, although the term tapa is international and understood throughout the islands that use the cloth. The word tapa is from Tahiti, where Captain Cook was the first European to pick it up and to introduce it to rest of the world. In Tonga, tapa is known as ngatu, and here it is of great social importance to the islanders, often being given as gifts. In Samoa, the same cloth is called siapo. In Hawai'i, it is known as kapa. In Rotuma it is called uha and in Fiji it is cal
Meadows Under the Sea 2008-04-02 17:15:00 The only flowering plant that can live underwater are appropriately called seagrasses. This means that even flowering and pollination occur under the waves. Most species have distinct male and female individuals. But they can reproduce vegetatively and can form large meadows.These meadows in the Solomon Islands, are grazed by dugongs and green turtles. They form a habitat for a myriad of small fish, prawns and other invertebrates. Worldwide seagrass communities are important nursery grounds for fish. They are typically found in shallow sheltered sandy or muddy areas. They can be monospecific or have a range of different sea grass species. The depth at which they grow is usually controlled by the amount of light available for photosynthesis. They survive in the intertidal zone and will surv Read more:Meadows
Japan's Chilly Northern Forests 2008-04-02 17:14:00 In northern Japan
, beech trees dominate the forest. They've evolved a strategy of living long, growing taller than the other trees, and reacting quickly to the lengthening days of spring.Throughout the forest winter begins to lose its grip. But this interval between seasons is still dangerous for the trees. Forest birds like this dusky thrush have remained active throughout the winter, and while pickings may be lean, nothing goes to waste.With the orchestrated precision of a symphony the forest reacts to spring. Dog-tooth violets bloom just in time to attract their pollinator - a butterfly.These images are taken from NHNZ Images, movie clips which are available for you to purchase for your production. Read more:Chilly
, Northern
Guess What? Sand Hoppers Hop! 2008-04-02 17:11:00 The beach is more than just a playground. For a special group of plants and animals it's home.Best known of these are the sand-hoppers. Related to crustaceans they are in fact amphipods. They hide during the day under seaweed and driftwood on the beach.As its common name suggests it leaps by first flexing its body than quickly straightening it whilst thrusting its hind limbs against the sand.If disturbed, their instinct is to burrow into the safe embrace of the sand where they wait until nightfall. They use the same rear legs to clear away the sand as it is pushed aside by the head when burrowing.Then the sand hoppers turn out in force to clean up the beach, scavenging on kelp and dead animals. They do not survive long in direct sunshine, and provide tasty pickings for gulls, oystercatche Read more:Guess
Prickly Sharks 2008-04-02 17:09:00 Until remote cameras were invented, no-one had ever seen the mysterious Prickly Shark in it's own deep-sea environment. This is a shark that lives way beyond human dive range, but recently scientists have discovered them in shallower water. Prickly Sharks
live in the Pacific Ocean at depths between three-hundred and thirteen-hundred feet, well out of reach of the average diver, but recently scientists have found them in much shallower water, in an underwater canyon at the head of Monterey Bay off the central coast of California.Monterey Bay is well known for it's marine life. The food-rich upwellings from the nearby underwater Canyon support an ecosystem that sustains creatures like harbour seals, sea lions, thousands of pelicans and, of course, the famous sea otter. But it's the only p
Mud Glorious Mud 2008-04-02 17:08:00 Mangrove swamplands, or mangrove forests are tropical places where the sea meets the land, but in an ill-defined sort of way. No nice beach with high and low water marks, rather a muddy expanse of trees and shrubs.There are about twenty different families of plants that have somehow managed to invade the sea's edge. Twice a day, every day the tides drown, then expose the tangled mass of roots.Mangrove plants much be able to cope with the high salinity of sea water, each species has its own tolerances and differing methods of coping with the harsh environment.Snorkel roots rising from the thick mud provide a continuous air supply to the main roots buried deep below. One problem for mangrove trees that snorkel roots help solve is the poor oxygen level in the waterlogged muddy soil.Once es
Cute and Cuddly Sea Otters 2008-04-02 17:07:00 Cute and cuddly they may be, but sea otters are voracious predators of shellfish, sea urchins, crabs, octopuses and fish and any other smallish morsels they can find. They forage underwater usually for about one to two minutes, but can remain submerged for up to six. Prey is located by vision or touch, which is then brought to the surface by the front paws.On the surface the otter can feed in a leisurely fashion whilst floating on its back, using its belly as a table. They are one of the few creatures that exhibit tool-use. Some otters carry stones which they use as anvils to smash open the shellfish or sea urchins.Otters will often wash their food by turning over in the water time and time again. Sea otters are diurnal, and have bursts of foraging activity at dawn and dusk. These stil
A Simple Grain of Sand 2008-04-02 17:06:00 "To see a world in a grain of sand" wrote William Blake, I think he knew a thing or two. Sand certainly takes on menacing form when the wind launches its savage attack.Tiny splinters of quartz are whipped in to a frenzy, slashing everything in their path. The process that takes place here has a fancy name - saltation, which basically describes how sand grains move either in the wind, or underwater.For plants and animals who live in the dunes, these battles are a way of life. It is the challenge they accepted when they colonised the sand.Where sea meets land, the forces of nature stage some of their most violent battles.Sand is the aftermath. It's been here since the sea began storming the coast and it combines the properties of its markers: fluid as the waves, resilient as rock.Magnified, Read more:Simple
, Grain
Shovel of the Sea 2008-04-02 17:05:00 Despite its looks, sea cucumbers, or beche-de-mer, are related to starfish and sea urchins. Basically an elongated leathery tube, is held in shape by an endoskeleton, at one end are tentacles which the sea cucumber uses to forage in the sea floor mud and sand for plankton and decaying organic material. They are good scavengersAt this lagoon, a programme of research has been carried out which includes measuring the sea cucumbers, some of which can grow up to two feet (50-60cm).The name sea cucumber derives from their shape, and beche-de-mer means shovel of the sea, both appropriate handles for this squidgy tube.Last week I wrote about traditional harvesting of taro in Ontong Java, in the Solomon Islands. This week's posting concerns the same location, and another traditional method of catch Read more:Shovel
Tropical Taro, the Tropical Spud 2008-04-02 17:04:00 Taro, or the potato of the tropics, is a staple food crop throughout the Pacific. Here, at Ontong Java in the Solomons it is culitvated in the traditional way, by villagers still living a traditional lifestyle. It is grown all year round, and every part of the plant provides food.As the corm is lifted from the ground, any extra 'waste' is dug back into the soil to provide fertiliser for the new corms. New corms are formed by vegetative propagation from portions of the parent plant.The wild plants have lost their ability to flower and set seed, so this is the only way to produce taro crops. This fact suggests that taro has been in cultivation for a very long period, and some claim it to have been grown since 5000BC in tropical wet India.In Ontong Java, taro is harvested regularly from indiv Read more:Tropical
It's Behind You! 2008-04-02 17:02:00 That's the cry that goes up in pantomime when the villain sneaks up on the hero or heroine, the audience can see what's happening but the hero can't. This must be what it feels like to be a young laysan albatross. Lurking beneath the waves, out of sight, is a deadly foe - a tiger shark.The young birds do not have the skill to take off from the surface of the water, which as you can see from these series of still images, taken from NHNZ Images video, is not an easy task for such a large bird as an adult albatross.There's considerable wing flapping, and running along the surface of the water before final take-off.The plumage of young birds is not quite so water-proof, and once they land of the sea surface they can quickly become bedraggled.Crash-landings in the sea are quite common amongst
Thrashing Thresher Sharks 2008-04-02 17:01:00 This pelagic thresher shark, is from the island of Cebu, in the Philippines. Life here can be a real struggle, and too often, nature comes off second best. It's the last place one would expect to find a rare species of shark. Pelagic thresher sharks are occasionally caught in isolated parts in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, but a resident population has recently been discovered in Philippine waters. They're a pelagic species, which means that they roam the oceans. At Cebu, there's an undersea mountain where they're found all year round. From the large size of those eyes it is immediately obvious that this is the type of animal that hunts in deep water or hunts at night.Threshers perform spectacular leaps out of the water, but you've got to be lucky to catch one on film. They are very ap Read more:Sharks
How Paddle Crabs Burrow 2008-04-02 17:00:00 Paddle crabs are found throughout New Zealand, from almost semi-tropical Northland beaches to the very much colder beaches of Stewart Island in the far south of the country. They live on sandy bottoms in estuaries and surf beaches alike.During the day most crabs remain hidden in temporary burrows emerging soon after sunset to hunt for bivalve molluscs. In turn they are eaten by over 30 different species of fish. Living as they do in an open environment the crab can either swim for cover (not often its first choice), stand and fight, or burrow out of harms way. Larger crabs (that is those with shells more than 7cm wide) are quite aggressive, and will confront their enemies and lunge upwards with the long chelae (claws) held upwards and outwards. But smaller crabs will burrow backwards qui Read more:Crabs
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