Folks interested in Waikawa Beach and its birds … take a look at this morning's Waikawa News blog post: Wrybills vs Dotterels. 🐦

Wrybills and two kinds of Dotterels are tiny, cute, and starting to show up for the season.

This is a super busy week with a lot of things going on — new car will need a charger, bank stuff, insurance stuff. Meanwhile a gigantic local issue about how (and if) vehicles can access Waikawa Beach will be debated tomorrow and I'll do a wee speech at Council in the public participation session.

These days I watch the tide charts. There's a dramatic difference at Waikawa Beach between mid-lunar month (low variation) and full (super) moon (high variation).

In August 2022 I spotted a Kererū at Waikawa Beach for the first time. This year there are two! I only managed a photo of one. 🐦

Sinalei Resort in Samoa. Bit different from Waikawa Beach eh! Also, about 25C. 🇼🇸

Waikawa Beach where I live is at about 40° south of the Equator. We get a great view of the Southern Cross, but never see Ursa Major.

Samoa however is about 14° south of the Equator. On checking Stellarium today I find I should be able to see both constellations! ✨ 🇼🇸

Dammit, there are two items on the agenda for today’s meeting of the Horowhenua District Council that particularly interest me. They’re about Waikawa Beach. The live stream though lasted all of 4 seconds. I’ve reported it and hope they get the stream back online…

Time to head home now — a 12 hour drive. We’ll visit friends along the way and have a couple of overnight stops.

Rain forecast for the rest of our trip.

Waikawa Beach has nice dark skies so tomorrow night I'm running a community event I've called Starry Time: a casual hour of looking at stars with the naked eye or binoculars. I hope we can see Mars, Venus, Large & Small Clouds of Magellan, Southern Cross, Milky Way, Arcturus, Canopus, Sirius. 🤩

Those into Tiny Homes may enjoy this writeup and photos of a tiny home right beside the main entrance to Waikawa Beach: Designer’s Two-Bedroom Tiny Is Ultra Creative, Hides a Cool Sliding Ladder.

The original owners sold, and the property it stands on may soon be lost to the sea (hence: wheels).

Did a speedtest on my 4G WiFi broadband connection after billbennettnz wrote about speeds.

Happy with our rural residential speed (I can see the cell tower from here) here at Waikawa Beach, Horowhenua.

@billbennettnz

Kimbolton is a 90 minute drive northish from Waikawa Beach. At their Sculpture Festival they knew how to entertain, kids especially. Lots of food stalls, but also a pen of Dorset Downs sheep, a Mystery Wool Dig, a jump-in trampoline, a boat race pond and lots of other good rural stuff.

I find it interesting that the Google Alert I have in place for Waikawa Beach found me an item about Kai Iwi beach. No mention of Waikawa in the source.

Back on 05 December 2021 I thought I’d try Publii for my Waikawa Beach blog. It works adequately, but I really truly miss being able to work with Posts via MarsEdit. Plus there are blog features Micro.Blog is just so much better at. I’m planning a move…

Whew. First I did research that took at least a week. Then I spent at least another week trying to write a big article for my Waikawa Beach blog. Finally I have a draft. Read-through tomorrow when I’m fresh, then I’ll publish. It’s not usually this hard.

Since I just looked this up for myself.

Source: Seasons: Dates of Spring, Summer, Fall & Winter. Note: times are for Paraparaumu, not far from Waikawa Beach.

The Kiwi barbie: Craig from Horowhenua District Council cooks saussies on a BBQ in a trailer, under an umbrella, in the rain, for the opening of the new Waikawa Beach ‘amenity’ block (aka toilets) yesterday.

The newly completed toilet block at Waikawa Beach (replacing a 50- to 60- year old facility) also has fresh new signage — in Te Reo Māori and English as all our local Council’s signs are these days. Very pleasing!

Folks, you might like to see Take care for the Pied Stilt chicks about the baby birds currently trying to survive on our beach. Includes fantastic photos by Corne Ferreira, a visitor I was chatting to the other day. Location: Waikawa Beach, Horowhenua, Aotearoa New Zealand. 🐦

Thanks to the global Light pollution map I now know the sky where I live is almost as dark as it can get, at Class 2. On a clear night I can see the Clouds of Magellan with my naked eye. ⭐️

Wellington, OTOH, comes in at Class 6: bad.

The first time I’ve heard the Pīpīwharauroa | Shining cuckoo at Waikawa Beach. I’ve never seen one. It has the most annoying call:

Voice: the main call is a loud upwardly-slurred whistle repeated several times; the sequence usually ends with a downwardly-slurred whistle.

A Day In The Life Photo Challenge 2022. Taken at 08:40 at Waikawa Beach, Horowhenua, Aotearoa. Flowering Ti Kouka (Cabbage tree).

First time ever I’ve seen a Kererū at Waikawa Beach. They do live 4 Km away (as the bird flies) but have never been down here before as far as I know. 🐦

Length: 50 cm; Weight: 630 g

It only takes 3 and a half hours to drive home, and that includes a detour to a track. I should visit this area more often: stunning scenery, amazing short (and long) walks.

About 2 hours after high tide, with an open sea swell of 5 metres, and westerly gales so strong they just about knocked me off my feet while I took this photo: the Waikawa Beach estuary, full. And yes, events like this are eroding the dunes quite rapidly.