Coming Up Close

At my work one of the many birds we see during the day is this Thrush who has a habit of following me around. Sometimes if I move pots around in the yard she pops into that spot and pecks at the worms left behind.

 Last week we saw that she had made a rather large nest on top of the discounted plants. On Sunday when I looked there were 2 little blue eggs in it. I don't whether she's abandoned it or not as I haven't seen her near it much. Hopefully there will be baby birds peeking out of it in the near future.Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Through my Lens, Tuesday Treasures and My Corner of the World.

Purely my accident my daughter and I found this in our town set up in our park.  They were only there apparently for one day and the Glow Show Company, as they are called are a magical glow in the dark giant scale puppet show for 2-10 year olds - since we were both adults we just had a look around.
"Tuia Matauranga" from what I work out is something to do with knowledge in the Maori language and the whole show focuses on "Takutai Moana" or coastal sea and "Te moana nui a Kiwa" or the Pacific Ocean with it being all about our "kai moana" or seafood. 
Inside the trailer there were diagrams, illustrations and boards set up. Because we were so interested we were given a colouring book and pencils which we were pass onto my brother's children. 
So as it's rich in Te Reo Maori langage, it's an upbeat show with catchy music and has a question and answer session afterwards. 
The show runs for about 45 minutes, the trailer has been designed for t…

I had 15 minutes to spare yesterday in between jobs so I walked down to our local Rainbow Falls for a brief sit next to the waterfall. Also known by it's Maori name of Waianiwaniwa, it has 3 different viewing platforms before leading along a short path to the water.  At 27 metres tall it's made from an erosion of soft rock and sited on a hard basalt layer of rock.
Of course I had to take a short video of the waterfall. Linking up with Skywatch Friday.

Yesterday B and I visited a local business called "The Parrot Place". We've heard about it and decided it was worth a peek.  Above on the left is a yellow ringneck Parrot and on the right are 2 small Cockatiels.  Click on each image for a larger view.

Not sure what the guy on the left is but the guy on the right has a Blue Ringneck Parrot and a Green Ringneck Parrot on his shoulders. We were given a small bowl of food to feed them.

Some of the birds were in large aviaries depending on their type and other hand reared ones were in a large aviary together. On the left above is a Long Billed Corella who kept saying "hello" to us and on the right is a Crimson Winged Parrot.

On the left is a Eclectus and on the right is a pair of Black Feathered Cocktatoo named Elvis and Priscilla.

A pair of Galahs on the left and on the right was a very very noisy Blue and Gold Macaw near the front entrance.

Me feeding a Blue Ringneck Parrot on the left and on the right a Ruby Macaw.

Abo…

This photo came up in my memorites on Facebook, I'd forgotten I had it so herewith this bear on the side of a building in Mount Maunganui was painted by artist Mica Still who seems to have an afinity with bears from what I can see on the Facebook page. It's bright, it's colourful but I'm not sure what it's all about.Well as of this morning we have a Labour led majority government and we couldn't be happier. With roughly full election results it looks like Labour is on 49.5% which means they can govern alone without teaming up with any other parties. I think Jacinda really has done well leading us through Covid so hopefully the next 3 years we can bounce back even stronger.Linking up with Mural Monday and Through my lens.

When I was little, we lived in Auckland and my grandparents on dad's side lived in Epsom so we would visit them regularly. They were caretakers of the local college and they lived in an old house with a huge overgrown garden. When my older cousins on that side also visited they would tell me stories of fairies living in their mushroom houses and point things out to me. Funny how I believed it all - I had quite an imagination back then.A few days ago I had this little thought to create a fairy garden in my backyard and funnily enough I visited a client who had a collection of bird's nests that she finds on her property, she gave me one to have and I knew what purpose it would have. So after buying a little ceramic teapot house, some tiny footprint pavers and a miniature hedgehog toy I set about creating - what do you think? I know my brother's little girl would love it.Lately B and I have been discussing where we would live if we ever moved to Australia. His daughter lives …

Te Kopuru, just out of Dargaville is one of those old kiwi towns filled with old villas and bungalows from when it was first settled in the mid 1800s.  Last time we were up that way I got B to stop next to an old church I saw from the roadside. St Peter's Anglican Church is on the Heritage List and was built in 1902. It has a square belfry tower with a pyramid shaped roof and a wooden cross on it's northern side. It was designed by priest/architect Henry Barnard Wingfield who came to NZ when he was a boy and settled in Dunedin with his family. He studied architecture before being ordained in 1897. In 1899 he was appointed the first vicar at Pokeno, South of Auckland and in 1904 he was appointed to St Alban's in Balmoral, Auckland where he served for 22 years. In 1926 he was appointed vicar this time to the Holy Trinity Church in Devonport, Auckland remaining there until his retirement in 1931.He devoted his time to ecclesiastical architecture and has been credited with th…