Hello Yellow

Yellow's bright and cheerful. I welcome it, especially now we're in the grey days of winter in New Zealand. I decided it's time to put together another YELLOW post and this one is super-loaded ...enjoy! You can't miss yellow, even if there's only a little bit 🙂 This time I've sourced majorly from Twitter so...

Paradise Shelduck

This beautiful endemic shelduck has a large body like a goose and we see them often whether in city parks or farm fields. Wild ones aren't tolerant of disturbance and readily take off with both birds in full cry - they are very noisy with distinct male/female voices and both are very vocal. The duck...

Burn ‘n’ Bridge

Here again is the Argyle Burn at Waikaia, Southland and this time we've walked under the road bridge that we'd driven over earlier in the day. I wandered under the bridge because our lovely native fantails were demonstrating their acrobatics there. I soon realised they showed-up so small on my cellphone screen I couldn't see...

Ripe Apples for Birds

Here's an apple tree we came across yesterday when we went for a local country drive. The tree was by the roadside but Nigel had stopped to take a photo of something else. There was a fair bit of bird activity, which lured me out of the car. Just had my cellphone so detail's not...

Priceless Gift

-- poem by Eileen Carney Hulme Poet in Scotland, three books published Stroking The Air 2005, The Space Between Rain 2010, The Stone Messenger 2015 [poem used with permission] Twitter:  @strokingtheair I was delighted to also find on Twitter this lovely colourful photo of a starling mumuration at Brighton (UK). Many thanks to Marianna Bjerglys,...

New Zealand in the Spotlight

THREE  THINGS !!! First, if you're interested in a rare opportunity to see a range of native New Zealand wildlife and plants - on a remote island that hardly anyone visits, unless associated with conservation work - then I have the blog for you to follow! I've done a shout-out for this lovely couple before...

Writing Writing Writing

Kay's favourite 'quiet' hobby/interest is 'writing, writing, writing'! Kay McKenzie Cooke is a southern Aotearoa / New Zealand writer that I've met through blogging and I'm excited for Kay that her fourth book of poetry will be released in June. She's also been working on a novel over the last decade and I think publication...

Bordering On Madness

The insanity of it all. OK American folks, here's where it's at. Many of you will know stacks more about this issue than me - there'll be ins and outs, no doubt, that I know nothing about. I haven't made a point of reading up about the infamous Border Wall. But this was in my...

Tree Fuchsia Flowers

Following on from the  blue pollen image  I posted earlier I thought I'd show you some photos of the flowers of our tree fuchsia (endemic to New Zealand). These flowers are quite small and insignificant when seen within the tree canopy - they're not showy like your typical garden fuchsia. Fuchsia excorticata or kōtukutuku 1....