Willowbank Wildlife Reserve

This last weekend Jocelyn and I decided to go to Willowbank Wildlife Reserve located on the outskirts of Christchurch. Willowbank is broken up into three main areas; wild, heritage, and natural New Zealand. Upon entering the reserve the first creature that we encountered were the eels. These ugly creatures were black, with blue eyes and about 5 feet long. There were some small kids feeding the eels, which was a sight to see because the eels would stretch about 6 inches out of the water with their mouths wide open trying to get at the food. Another kid was reaching into the water and petting the eels and said they were very slimy. We were not brave enough but will feel a lot less bad now eating them in our sushi since they are so horribly ugly.

We then entered the wild New Zealand section which included animals that have been introduced to New Zealand in the past and others that are found in Australia. These animals included deer, black swans, ostriches, wallabies, pheasants, turtles, and monkeys.

In this section I would have to say the monkeys were our favorite. There were a few baby monkeys hanging on to their mom’s back where they would spend the first few weeks of their lives. I guess even monkeys sometimes have a monkey on their back.

The next section, heritage New Zealand, contained mostly farm animals. They had a few piglets for sale and I think Jocelyn wanted one, but when she saw how ugly the adult pigs were she changed her mind. In this section we also saw donkeys, a Clydesdale horse, peacocks, turkeys, goats, sheep, llamas, and of course an American mini horse. Jocelyn was pretty excited about the mini horse. Figures, we come all the way to New Zealand for her to see an American mini horse. We went through this section fairly quickly since we had seen many of these farm animals before.

The last section we went through was the natural New Zealand, which contained only native animals. Since there are not any large, native animals, this section was mostly birds, fish, and lizards. In the first exhibit we got to walk inside the area where the birds were kept.

One of the birds we saw in this sectional was a Kea, which was very busy digging a hole and throwing rocks onto the pathway.

Next we walked though a small replicated Maori village where later on at night they have a show with traditional Maori traditions. Since it was getting chilly we decided to save the show for another day. The very last part was the Kiwi house. This was the main reason that we came to Willowbank because Jocelyn had not seen a kiwi yet. Since kiwis are nocturnal the kiwi house is dark during the day so they are up running around. When we first entered the darkness we could not find any kiwis, but after our eyes adjusted we then found one pacing back and fourth searching for grubs. Kiwis are truly funny looking animals with their short legs, big butts, and long beaks. Once we found the first kiwi we started to notice more and in the end we saw four of them. We tried taking some pictures in the dark without the flash but those did not work so well so we decided to turn the flash on and scare the kiwis. To my surprise they did not seem to be phased at all by the flash. I figure they are used to people breaking this rule. All in all it was a fun day and if you want to see more pictures click here.