Mystery Babies

I was out at the farm last week to help with shearing. While getting the sheep down from out the back of the farm, I saw what looked a bit like a miniture hippo lying in the grass. Not far away, was a second one.

the mystery creature

My first thought was that a ewe must have aborted. It is the right time of year, the ewes are pregnant with the first of the lambs due in about a month. Twins are common and abortions do occur occasionally. So it was possible. I've seen one once before - a bald rat-like creature lying dead in the grass. But something wasn't quite right with that theory... This was the boys' paddock! And these guys had little well formed paws (an aborted lamb would have little hooves, not paws).

Intrigued, I came back later to look at them more closely. I soon discovered a total of five of these little creatures. Far too many for a sheep, so that was definitely ruled out. But what were they?

We wondered, perhaps they were rabbits or  maybe premature kittens?

A look inside the mouth revealed little rodent teeth...

To me, the ears seemed rather rounded for a rabbit, but the evidence was increasingly looking like that was what they were. I was just about to return home, but I decided to wander around the nearby area to see if there were anymore. When out of the reeds dashed a hare, and bounded away up and over the hill. I took a closer look where the hare had come out from, and found something of a nest under a reed bush.

Hares nest above ground, they don't burrow like rabbits. So this made some sense, and led me to believe the babies I found were hares. From some subsequent research, it appears the babies were born full term. It is possible they had been born alive, but soon froze to death on the cold frosty morning. But a mystery still remains. Why were they born out in the open, instead of in the nest?

Such beautiful little babies

Fungus or Insect?

Just before Christmas, I was rearranging the my pot plant garden outside my door as the fig tree had grown so that it was shading some of the pots. While doing this, I uncovered a very fine looking snail beneath my strawberry pot. I was confronted with a problem – I didn't want Mr. Snail eating my strawberries (and/or other plants) but I couldn't stomach killing him. Solution: Keep him as a pet instead :) I will post more about him later... But tonight's post comes from something I found when picking a leaf from my plant for Mr. Snail to eat.

It was almost dark, so I didn't really look too closely at the leaves before I picked one, it was just one that was handy. As I came inside, into the light, I noticed something near the base of the leaf, that at the time I thought was a fungus of some sort. I decided seeing as my snail's new home is a little bit confined that I didn't want to put that in there for him with the rest of the leaf, as he doesn't have the option of running away if it ends up being noxious. So I broke that part of the leaf off, before giving him the rest of the leaf. I left the piece of leaf with the 'fungus' on my desk, because I intended to come back and look at it a little closer later – it looked quite unusual. I started work last week and have been quite busy, so I forgot about it for a few days. Then one day, I noticed the 'fungus' had moved! It was no longer on the leaf, which was by now a bit dried out and shriveled. Instead I saw it on a nearby box. It was then I discovered it was not a fungus at all, but a bug.

Turning it over I discovered it had little legs...

A google search soon revealed it was a cottony cushion scale insect (Icerya purchasi). The white 'cotton cushion' it makes is its egg sac, but this one's egg sac was only just beginning to be made. The egg sac can end up being bigger than the insect.

Like other scale insects, it feeds on sap. This made sense, as when I first found it, it was on the mid vien of the leaf. As the leaf shriveled up, it wouldn't have been receiving sap anymore and evidently it went off exploring in search of a new food source.

I was also intrested to find out that it was first described from specimens collected from New Zealand, despite it being a non-native pest species. It comes from Australia instead. It apparently will feed on a wide range of plant species, but is particularly partial to Pittosporum and Citrus species.

So that was my interesting find this week for Reconnect With Nature :) 

Ice at the Beach

The weather is warming up and it is beginning to feel like summer. So I went to the beach a few days ago, and went for a walk to see what interesting things I could find. I found that the ice plant was in bloom. So today I'm sharing with you some photos of ice plant and its flowers. I don't know why its called ice plant, its an odd name. 

Ice plant is a succulent that grows on coastal rocks, cliffs and sand dunes.

There are two species of ice plant in New Zealand - the native Disphyma australe and the introduced Carpobrotus edulis.

I think these photos are of C. edulis. C. edulis has leaves about 7 cm long while the native D. australe has leaves about 4 cm long.

C. edulis, also known as the Hottentot fig, was introduced to New Zealand (and other parts of the world) from South Africa.

The ice plant (both varieties) are edible. One can eat the fruits and the pickled leaves.

This is a flower bud, not a fruit! I didn't see any fruits.

The fruits are apparently (according to Andrew Crowe in his book "A field guide to native edible plants of New Zealand") quite salty, but the inner part is sweeter and more palatable, but has a rather slimey texture. 

The flowers come in yellow as well as pink

 Maybe I should give them a try sometime... 

The flowers seem popular with the bumble bees

C. edulis was planted on sand dunes in order to help stabilise them, but has since gone wild. According to www.biosecurity.govt.nz C. edulis is now considered an 'unwanted organism', because it displaces other sand dune plants and hybridises with the native ice plant species.   

It is a pity that C. edulis is becoming a pest, because it is such a pretty plant.

I'll share some of the other interesting things I found on my walk at the beach soon.