Rare White Heron in Thames New Zealand

The Kotuku or White Heron

 

 

We saw this rare and beautiful bird last Tuesday as we were passing through Thames on the Coromandel Coast in the North Island.  It is a large bird and it floated in to land on an old fishing vessel on the intertidal mud flats. .

 

 

The mud flats provide a habitat for mangroves which are prolific around the Hauraki Gulf.

There were not many other birds around, some pied shags and a few ducks so it was a great surprise

to see a kotuku.  They only breed on the West coast of the South Island so it had travelled some

distance.

 

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blog

 

 

All images copy right Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

 

 

 



A Garden Painting from New Zealand

A Friend's Garden

 

 

This painting was made from the view in a friend's garden which backs onto an area of New

Zealand bush.  On the left there are Black Mamaku tree ferns which can grow to

twenty metres, they have a distinctive curled frond before they unfold into their large umbrella branches.  It is the tallest of our native tree ferns.

In the foreground is a large red flax and in front of that a patch of blue iris which seem to become

a dark purple when viewed against the flax.

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective Blogspot

 

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

 

 

 



More Garden Paintings from New Zealand

More Garden Paintings

 

Here are my two latest garden paintings, they will form a series eventually.

 

 

They are made from wild roadside verges which provide food for

many of our insects and birds as well, while looking at them I am

struck by how often the small things which we miss are so important.

 

 

A patch of weeds like this can be teeming with life which

goes by barely noticed.  Hovering around here were blue dragonflies, bumble

bees and some little blue butterflies.

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blogspot

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

Settler's Cottage in New Zealand

The Settler's Cottage at Mahana

 

Last week we visited the Settler's cottage at Mahana near Upper Moutere in the South Island.

The cottage was built in 1859 for an English couple, George and Cornelia Harvey, it was built for them in eleven days.  It seemed to be a typical sod cottage but I was struck by how large it is, it had several rooms downstairs and even a garage on the side for the family buggy.

 

 

 

 

Originally it only had two rooms downstairs, the kitchen dining area and the master bedroom.  An attic area was later used as additional sleeping quarters. The other rooms and the garage were added later by a new owner

 

 

 

 

The walls were made from a mixture of local clay, grasses and water - they are about 48 to 61cms thick. By the begining of the First World War the cottage was in the hands of  the Bensemann family, who belonged to the German settlement of Sarau or Upper Moutere.

 

 

 

 

The cottage is now maintained by The Somerset Farm Settler's Cottage Trust, they have done

a wonderful job of re-thatching and setting up the displays.  The following photograph

shows some of the surrounding land and just what a hot and dry Summer we have had.

 

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective Blogspot

 

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

Red and Pink Sunflowers

Red and Pink Sunflowers in My Garden

 

I photographed my sunflowers which are the only plants thriving in the long hot Summer

which we have had on the Kapiti Coast.  The soil is extremely dry and we are having

to use washing water to keep the garden alive.

 

 

The bees seem to love them, this pink one is just covered with a dusting of pollen

and you can see the bumble been busy collecting it.

 

 

I have also grown some dwarf varieties which are mixed colours - this

one is a lovely deep yellow with orange tinges.

 

 

They also attract the butterflies, we get mostly monarchs and sometimes a yellow

admiral.

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fireweed on the Bomb Sites

Fireweed 

I grew up in England after the second World War, fireweed or Rosebay Willowherb was common on old bomb sites and ruins.  It prefers to grow in areas which have been scorched  and the rosy purple flowers are perfect for bees and other insects to feed on.  I made this painting after thinking about my early years and the different wild flowers which I was familiar with.

 

 

My brother was born during the war and my Mother said that he never slept at night for the first two years of his life because of the constant air raids over the south coast and the nights spent in air raid shelters. This is a photo of one of the early meetings between by brother and father, my father was on leave from the Fleet Air Arm but to my brother he is a stranger and he wonders who he is.

 

 After the war and when I was born we lived in this cottage, we were deemed to be living in overcrowded conditions by the health authorities as there were now four of us in two rooms, my parents were made to move.  The house we went to was larger and because food  and petrol were still rationed my parents were able to keep goats for milk, hens and a pig in the back garden. This seemed to work well until the goats ate the petrol coupons which they found poking out of someones pocket.  My mother managed to buy two bananas, she wrote our names on them so that my father would not eat them, he probably deserved them more than we did.

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective Blogspot

 

 

All images copyright Frances Jill Studd 2015

 

 

 

 

 

Cathy's Garden

Cathy's Garden

 

Before Christmas I photographed a friends garden with the idea of making a painting.

Cathy Stewart loved gardening, she had an ethic that the whole point of gardening

was to share the plants with other gardeners and in that way 'people' your own

garden as well.  It is an ethic which was shared in my family, and some of the plants

in my Mother's collection were so named.  It is a tradition which I have continued

with my garden too, I have Rosie's Canterbury bells, Helen's lily of the valley,

Jenny's orchid and Cathy's salvia to mention a few.

 

Cathy died tragically last Saturday, she will be greatly missed. 

Haere ra Cathy

 

 

 

 

Frances Jill Studd website

Midnight Collective blog

 

 

All images copy right Frances Jill Studd 2015