I glimpsed this juvenile Kōtare, Sacred Kingfisher through the window, managed a couple of shots and then it took off. I love my 100–400 zoom camera lens. 🐦
It’s been a busy Sunday. Among other things, I cleaned out the old straw and sawdust from the quail run and topped up with a fresh coating. The quail were pretty stressed by the activity, but seem happy now, especially since they got an extra helping of dried mealworms. 🐦
I’ve signed up for this 30 minute New Zealand Glassworks Make a Paperweight Workshop for August. Deb did it back in June 2018 as a birthday present but logistics meant I couldn’t take part then. Finally I get to have a turn!
Today we saw an Air Force Heritage Flight of New Zealand flypast: the superlative Supermarine Spitfire and three modern Beechcraft T–6C Texan IIs. I thought they were simply flying along the hills then they turned and flew directly overhead.
Today, for the second time in our lives, we have become mortgage-free. We have no debt and everything that comes in now is ours. 🥳
I changed an account password today. Do you think I was too hasty?
What an amazing resource. Thank you @scojjac I’m exploring Arabic:
Language Transfer (languagetransfer.org)
Fantastic audio course that teaches you to think in a language, not just memorize words.…Read: its.scojjac.com
The upside of ending up in Apple Music was I rediscovered a piece of music I adore: Ramirez: Misa Criolla (5 songs, 21 minutes):
Ariel Ramírez (4 September 1921 – 18 February 2010) was an Argentine composer… considered “a chief exponent of Argentine folk music” …
Utterly bewildered that to share with my family an app I’d just bought on the App Store I had to go to iTunes/Music‼️⁉️ I’ve been using Macs and Apple stuff for how long now — 30+ years and I found that process completely confusing and frustrating. Bought Grocery for shopping. (Corrected from 20+ to 30+.)
Fungi season: I suspect this is a fly agaric (Amanita muscaria). I like to see fungi but never know what they are. Found just across the road from our letterbox today.
Sharon Murdoch’s excellent cartoon today:
Forty kororā/little blue penguins found dead on a Far North beach.
FORTY (MORE) REASONS TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE. COUNT THEM.
Kiwis love these little penguins that we see around parts of our coast.
A few years ago I bought a Korg Nanokey 2 keyboard. I can’t play… Today I finally labelled the keys and began to learn to play Mary Had A Little Lamb! Woohoo! I don’t aim to be a musician, just to learn how to play some stuff. This is my year for Variety. ⚡️
Since I suggested today’s Challenge word (mountain) — I can never remember which mountain is which in the central North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. This is one of: Ruapehu, Tongariro or Ngauruhoe as seen from the Desert Road. Taken years ago with my Canon EOS 300D.
This morning’s new-to-me music: Siberian Altai Turkic Traditional Music. I like it.
Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum. Spoonbill parenting…
Seen at the beach this morning: a juvenile Spoonbill with its parents. 🐦
When I didn’t leave quickly enough one of the adult swans warned me off. I left. 🐦
I think this little fantail lives in the bushes near our gate. 🐦
No-one on the lake was very happy about me emerging from behind a bush to take an iPhone photo of the two black swans and their remaining 3 cygnets. 🐦
This morning’s very enjoyable sound track, Afghani music: Daud Khan Sadozai - live - 2013.
Hah! I always have such a feeling of achievement when I wrestle with both logic and regular expressions and win in the end. Today I amended a Keyboard Maestro macro to make an URL out of a post title for my news.wow-waikawa.nz site. I needed to account for punctuation.
