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Pūkorokoro Miranda Naturalists' Trust
The Miranda Naturalists' Trust is a charitable trust, that established and maintains the Miranda Shorebird Centre, located at Pūkorokoro / Miranda on the western shore of the Firth of Thames on the North Island of New Zealand. The Miranda Naturalists' Trust (MNT) was formed in 1975 to encourage people to visit the coastline and appreciate its wide range of flora and fauna. The trust promotes education and public awareness of coastal ecology, shorebird research and conservation. Work done by the trust, to increase knowledge of shorebird migration, includes bird banding, research and data exchange.Leaflet ''Miranda Shorebird Centre''. Published by the Miranda Naturalists' Trust, June 2008 The Shorebird Centre has information displays on waders and a library and helps raise funds for the trust's work through their shop sales and visitor accommodation. Miranda Miranda is on the western shore of the Firth of Thames where the Hauraki Plains drains into the Hauraki Gulf. The wet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strand Plain
A strand plain or strandplain is a broad belt of sand along a shoreline with a surface exhibiting well-defined parallel or semi-parallel sand ridges separated by shallow Swale (landform), swales. A strand plain differs from a barrier island in that it lacks either the lagoons or Tidal marsh, tidal marshes that separate a barrier island from the shoreline to which the strand plain is directly attached. Also, the Tidal channel, tidal channels and inlets which cut through barrier islands are absent. Strand plains typically are created by the redistribution by waves and longshore currents of coarse sediment on either side of a river mouth. Thus, they are part of one type of wave-dominated River delta, delta.McCubbin, D.G., 1982, ''Barrier-island and strand-plain facies.'' in P.A. Scholle, and D. Spearing, eds., pp. 247–279., Sandstone Depositional Environments: Memoir no. 31, Tulsa, Oklahoma, American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Tulsa, Oklahoma.Fitzgerald, D.M., W.J. Clear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Adams
Richard George Adams (10 May 1920 – 24 December 2016) was an English novelist. He is best known for his debut novel ''Watership Down'' which achieved international acclaim. His other works included ''Maia'', '' Shardik'' and '' The Plague Dogs''. He studied Modern History at Worcester College, Oxford, before serving in the British Army during World War II. After completing his studies, he joined the British Civil Service. In 1974, two years after ''Watership Down'' was published, Adams became a full-time author. Early life and education Richard Adams was born on 10 May 1920 in Newbury, Berkshire, the son of Lillian Rosa (née Button) and Evelyn George Beadon Adams, a doctor. He attended Horris Hill School from 1926 to 1933 and Bradfield College from 1933 to 1938. In 1938, he went to Worcester College, Oxford, to read Modern History. In July 1940, Adams was called up to join the British Army. He was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps and was selected for the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand Dotterel
The New Zealand dotterel (''Anarhynchus obscurus'') is a species of shorebird found only in certain areas of New Zealand. It is also called the New Zealand plover or red-breasted plover, and its Māori names include , , and . There are two subspecies. The southern subspecies is critically endangered and was nearing extinction with about 70 individuals remaining in 1992. Conservation measures increased this nearly 300 by 2010, but a further decline has occurred to an estimated 101 individuals in 2024. Taxonomy and systematics The New Zealand plover was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's ''Systema Naturae''. He placed it with the plovers in the genus ''Charadrius'' and coined the binomial name ''Charadrius obscurus''. Gmelin's description was based on the "Dusky plover" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his ''A General Synopsis of Birds''. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ornithological Society Of New Zealand
The Ornithological Society of New Zealand (OSNZ), also known as Birds New Zealand, is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the study of birds and their habitats in the New Zealand region. Founded in 1940, it caters to a wide variety of people interested in the birds of the region, from professional ornithologists to casual birdwatchers. The Society publishes a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal, ''Notornis'', and a quarterly news magazine, ''Birds New Zealand'' (formerly ''Southern Bird''). It also organises membership-based scientific projects, such as the Atlas of Bird Distribution in New Zealand. History Following preliminary discussions in 1938 and 1939, the Society was formally established at an inaugural general meeting chaired by Robert Falla at Canterbury Museum on 24 May 1940. It became an incorporated body in January 1953.Gill, B.J.; & Heather, B.D. (1990). ''A Flying Start. Commemorating 50 years of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand, 1940–1990'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronald Lockley
Ronald Mathias Lockley (8 November 1903 – 12 April 2000) was a Welsh ornithologist and naturalist. He wrote over fifty books on natural history, including a study of shearwaters, and the book ''The Private Life of the Rabbit'', which was used in the development of his friend Richard Adams's children's book ''Watership Down''. Life and career Lockley was born in Cardiff and grew up in the suburb of Whitchurch, where his mother ran a boarding school. While still at school, he spent his weekends and summer holidays living rough in the woods and wetlands that now form the Glamorganshire Canal local nature reserve. After leaving school, he established a small poultry farm with his sister near St Mellons, Cardiff. His son is the palaeontologist Martin Lockley. Skokholm In 1927, with his first wife Doris Shellard, he took a 21-year lease of Skokholm, a small island some off the western tip of Pembrokeshire, which was inhabited only by rabbits and seabirds. Attempts to make ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is called a naturalist or natural historian. Natural history encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it. It involves the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms, so while it dates from studies in the ancient Greco-Roman world and the mediaeval Arabic world, through to European Renaissance naturalists working in near isolation, today's natural history is a cross-discipline umbrella of many specialty sciences; e.g., geobiology has a strong multidisciplinary nature. Definitions Before 1900 The meaning of the English term "natural history" (a calque of the Latin ''historia naturalis'') has narrowed progressively with time, while, by contrast, the meaning of the related term "nature" has widened (see also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Island Pied Oystercatcher
The South Island oystercatcher or South Island pied oystercatcher (''Haematopus finschi'') is one of two common oystercatcher species found in New Zealand. Its name is often contracted to the acronym "SIPO" (rhyming with "typo"). The indigenous Māori name is . The scientific name commemorates the German ethnographer, naturalist and colonial explorer Friedrich Hermann Otto Finsch (8 August 1839 – 31 January 1917, Braunschweig).Jobling, James A. (2010). Bloomsbury Publishing, ed. The Helm dictionary of scientific bird names from aalge to zusii. Londres: Christopher Helm. p. 159. ISBN 1408133261. Description The South Island oystercatcher is easily identifiable as a pied oystercatcher – a large wader with striking black and white plumage, long red-orange bill, and red legs. It is distinguished from the pied morph of the variable oystercatcher by a white lower back, more white on the wing, and a demarcation line of black and white further forward on the breast, and from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wrybill
The wrybill or (in Māori language, Māori) ngutuparore (''Anarhynchus frontalis'') is a species of plover Endemic (ecology), endemic to New Zealand. It is the only species of bird in the world with a beak that is bent sideways in one direction, always to the right (in the crossbills, e.g. ''Loxia pytyopsittacus'', the tips of the upper and lower mandibles cross because they are bent sideways in opposite directions, sometimes left over right and sometimes right over left). A 2015 study found it to be within the ''Charadrius'' clade, with other New Zealand plovers its closest relatives; the nearest being the New Zealand dotterel or New Zealand plover (''Charadrius obscurus''), and then the double-banded plover or banded dotterel (''Charadrius bicinctus''). It lays its eggs among the rocks along rivers and distracts intruders by pretending to be in distress and moving away from its Clutch (eggs), clutch. It is rated as Vulnerable species, vulnerable on the International Union for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bar-tailed Godwit
The bar-tailed godwit (''Limosa lapponica'') is a large and strongly migratory wader in the family Scolopacidae, which feeds on bristle-worms and shellfish on coastal mudflats and estuaries. It has distinctive red breeding plumage, long legs, and a long upturned bill. Bar-tailed godwits breed on Arctic coasts and tundra from Scandinavia to Alaska, and overwinter on coasts in temperate and tropical regions of Australia and New Zealand. The migration of the subspecies ''Limosa lapponica baueri'' across the Pacific Ocean from Alaska to New Zealand is the longest known non-stop flight of any bird, and also the longest journey without pausing to feed by any animal. The round-trip migration for this subspecies is over . Taxonomy The bar-tailed godwit was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''Systema Naturae'' under the binomial name ''Scolopax limosa''. It is now placed with three other godwits in the genus '' Limosa'' th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middlemore
Middlemore is a suburb of the former Manukau City, one of the four cities that made up the conurbation of Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ..., in northern New Zealand, until 2010. The suburb is located on flat land at the southern end of the Ōtāhuhu isthmus, at the end of an arm of the Tamaki River and 18 kilometres southeast of Auckland CBD, Auckland city centre. It is located on New Zealand State Highway 1, State Highway 1, and the North Island Main Trunk railway passes by the Middlemore Hospital. Middlemore's most well-known landmarks are Middlemore Hospital and the Auckland Golf Club course, which surrounds the hospital grounds. Adjacent to both the golf club and Otahuhu College is the private secondary school, King's College, Auckland, King's Col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King's College, Auckland
King's College (Latin: ''Collegium Regis''; ), often informally referred to simply as Kings, is an independent secondary boarding and day school in New Zealand. It educates over 1000 pupils, aged 13 to 18 years. King's was originally a single sex boys school but has admitted girls in the Sixth and Seventh forms (Years 12 and 13) since 1980, and in the Fifth form (Year 11) since 2016. King's was founded in 1896 by Graham Bruce. King's was originally situated in Remuera, Auckland, on the site now occupied by King's School (Auckland), King's School, Remuera, in 1922 the school moved to its present site in the South Auckland suburb of Ōtāhuhu. The school has strong links to the Anglican church; the Anglican Bishop of Auckland and the Dean of Auckland are permanent members of the school's board of governors. The college is a member of the Round Square (educational organisation), Round Square group. King's celebrated its 125-year anniversary in 2021, while the 40 year anniversary of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
