Driving past the lake this morning I caught a quick glimpse of a baby pūkeko: a tiny ball of fluff on legs. No photo, I’m afraid, but here are 2 adult pūkeko in that same spot from last year.
What a great story, and with a surprising New Zealand connection: The Hopeful Story of a Doomed Fox, a 7 minute video from NPR’s Skunk Bear. The Island Fox in the US Channel Islands off the California coast was brought back from the brink of extinction.
I had an hour today with Karen, a Clinical Massage Practitioner. It turns out all the time I’ve spent using a weedeater recently (darn this warm wet ‘growing’ weather) has really taken a toll on me. She unlocked a bunch of muscles in my back, neck and arm.
$95 worth of high-quality beef mince, stir-fry and steak from my favourite Green Meadows Beef. A pleasing gift was the unexpected free pack of venison sausages.
Oshi will be 12 next week. He finds 6.45am far too early to be awake. Photo: Oshi the dog yawning while sitting on my lap.
When you glance out the window and spot someone lurking behind the flax bush only a few metres away… Photos: brown and white and black and white steers behind a flax bush.
These beauties are straight from our tunnel house. Photo: 6 red strawberries.
One of my favourite loose-leaf teas is Premium China Snowbuds, a delicate white tea. Today for the first time I actually carefully followed the recommendations for making it — 80C water, steep for 2 minutes. It was stunningly delicious!
Hayfever sounds fairly innocent: oh, you sneeze a lot. In reality it’s like a permanent bad cold: runny nose, sneezing, severely itchy throat, itchy eyes, but worst of all is the head fog and tiredness. For me lupins get past the Beconase that blocks other triggers.
In November lupin bushes are very pretty, loaded with bright yellow flowers … whose pollen flies straight into my eyes, nose and throat, and maybe even directly into my brain, creating itching and fogginess. Steroid shots may help. Today’s has already cleared my brain! 🥳
We had an early start at the beach this morning. Sasha caught today’s moment of sunshine. Photo: small black dog by a driftwood log on the beach, lit by a shaft of sun light.
Geese fly in those gorgeous wedge-shaped skeins… but not this gang of 35 rebels. They were all over the place as they flew past today: clumps, lines, outliers, gaps. Just before landing they nearly had it, but still not really. 13 photos of geese not in a wedge.
The fishing vessel Perseverance 66110 was our companion at the beach this morning. Photo: fishing boat near shore, small waves breaking.
The paddocks next door usually have Friesian (probably) steers. The farmer keeps his dairy herd elsewhere. Today the herd appears to have grown by one Highland cow. Photo: Highland cow with excellent horns, beside a smallish Friesian steer.
Caught this beauty just after coming home from dinner out. Photo: full red-tinged moon rising above paddocks.
I love the hawks that soar around here, hunting. Today, for the first time, and through a window, I managed an OK photo of one.
The bird in the range hood
I came home from shopping to hear extremely loud and continuous bird chirps in the corner of the kitchen. Odd. Outside: no birds. Inside: loud chirps. And fluttering. It sounded like it was inside the range hood: a very odd place for a bird to be.
If I banged on the hood, the chirping would stop. For a moment.
I fetched the ladder and leaned it up against the house where the range hood vents to. That vent was a long way up… (Well, not really, but I hate climbing ladders.)
I checked the range hood again and removed the bottom grille. That opened up a sealed area with no bird inside.
I looked at the ladder, and then realised the middle metal panel of the vertical part of the range hood could probably be removed by undoing the bottom screws.
I fetched the screwdrivers and slid up that middle panel. Sure enough, I could see bird legs and a portion of bird body.
That was enough to release the bird which rocketed past me and straight out through the wide open door, or so I thought.
A short time later: chirp, chirp, loud and in the corner of the kitchen.
It took quite a bit of looking and a lot of very loud chirping, but I finally located the bird well-hidden behind a small stack of plates. I moved the plates and it flew off, but this was one disoriented bird as it flew straight to the corner of a window, which allowed me to actually grab it.
It turned out to be a baby sparrow which did fly away for real once I took it outside.
I have no idea how it found itself in that space. I don’t know how things are arranged up in the ceiling space. Perhaps it had found a way in to the ceiling space and from there had fallen down beside the range hood vent pipe.
At least it’s free now.
Photo, a bird in the hand: Baby sparrow released from range hood prison. Ladder leaning against the house in the background.
Interesting: in this 8 minute audio we hear how beatboxers make sounds, some of which are unlike any used in human language. The Quirks & Quarks podcast this comes from is one of my favourites.
Interesting: “Sometimes, numbers on sites like YouTube and Twitter jump up and down subscriber counts lag, like-counts bounce… Why is it so hard for computers to count? To answer that, we need to talk about threading, eventual consistency, and caching.” Tom Scott’s video