A major new report … Our Marine Environment 2025 from the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ [found] that New Zealand's oceans are warming faster than the global average, marine heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense, the risk of invasive species and marine disease is increasing with climate change, and wetlands, dunes and native vegetation are being degraded.
… 91 percent of New Zealand's seabirds and 35 percent of its marine mammals were threatened or at risk
Via: $180 billion of homes sitting on flood-prone land, government report finds | RNZ News.
I drove 5 minutes to the beach to watch the Harvest Supermoon rising. I had to wait till it cleared the cloud. [Heh, it's spring in this part of the world, not harvest time.]
For the Pacific Wave Appreciation Society. 🌊
When we moved in to our house one side of a sliding door was badly scratched. The glazier theorised that whoever had cleaned it had a tiny chip of concrete or similar trapped on the rag.
Now, several weeks later they replaced the glass and I was amazed at how quick the job was: 15 minutes all up.
Today we drove south slightly to look at Langs Beach, about 3 Km south of Waipū Cove.
Then we drove a tad further to Mangawhai Heads and Mangawhai, all rather built up.
The sandspit is home to the extremely endangered Tara iti | Fairy tern. 🐦
The relict population of fewer than a dozen pairs survives between Whangarei in the north and Auckland to the south. The tiny population is gravely threatened by introduced predators and disturbance or encroachment by humans. They are intensively managed during the breeding season.
Author D. L. Keur has several series I enjoy, and Toxic Deceit (The King & Midnight K-9 Mysteries Book 3) was no exception: 📚
When a young woman exhibiting signs of psychosis is killed, it seems like a drug-induced frenzy… Then, another woman dies after falling into a seizure-induced coma and, hours later, a family of four is admitted to the hospital, all of them showing signs of poisoning …
Hmmm, this is the second time in a couple of weeks that my M1 MacBook Pro has thrown up this message after being asleep for a few hours. My 8Gb RAM is really starting to be a problem. The next one I buy (in a few months I hope) will have at least 16Gb.
This pukeko was hurrying by with a tasty morsel. 🐦
Magpie yodelled at me from the corner of the fence this morning. 🐦
Unfortunately we don't see this view from our house. On the other hand, it's only a 2 minute walk up a small incline behind our house to reach this viewpoint.
This 7 minute video from MinuteFood explains why bread gets hard as it stales, thanks to retrogradation, while cookies / biscuits go soft. A good watch. The REAL reason bread goes stale.
Most of Knight Shadow (Jorja Knight Mystery Series Book 8) by Alice Bienia was interesting and enjoyable. 📚
When her boss sends her to check on an old army buddy displaced by a fire, Jorja leaps at the chance—only to find him dead in a downtown alley.
Several chapters at the end though, after things were more or less resolved, were confusing and felt like a rushed afterthought.
About 10 minutes drive from our house is Wilson’s Dam:
created as a water supply reservoir for [Ruakākā] and now regularly stocked by Fish and Game with both rainbow and brown trout.
I don't fish but visited to see if there were any birds around. There weren't really.
It was a gorgeous spot though and would be a wonderful place to take a book and a picnic and while away some time.
Scrub your boots on the way in, to help prevent the spread of diseases that harm kauri trees.
Māori were the first people to arrive and settle all over Aotearoa somewhere around the year 1200-ish.
Thank goodness people (usually) word their signage more carefully these days than this plaque from 1992:
The museum wax I needed and was looking for yesterday for a project turned up today, of course. 😆
Meanwhile, I've discovered a photo I've been looking for for a while. Here, a photo of a very old photo — my maternal grandmother, age 84 when I visited her in London in 1976. I'd last seen her in 1963.
Black swans and mallard ducks on the nearby Dune Lake. 🐦
A few weeks ago in this video, From Osteopenia to Ninja Warrior at 73!! Ginny's Unique Formula for Aging Strong! I came across the concept of a Dead Hang
where you hold onto a bar above your head and just support your body weight. It apparently:
is good for the brain, decompresses the spine and improves grip strength.
My first few attempts went nowhere but now I can support my weight for about 10 seconds. I like the spinal stretch.
Today's entertainment: with putting our clocks forward an hour the Northland Emergency System tested the tsunami sirens: a whoop whoop sound followed by a voice saying "Test Only".
The nearest siren is ~600 metres away in a straight line.
Technically, we're in a safe area, if there is a tsunami.
Daybreak at an east coast beach.
Cows and gulls in a paddock opposite the shopping centre.
On our drive to the gym today we spotted a farmer using a large drone, presumably spraying the gorse on his property. It was pretty big — about as big as a medium size suitcase. It may well have been one of these: P150 - Airborne Solutions.
First time I've seen this use, or a drone that size.