The Ruakākā River is literally a 3 minute walk from our front door — a contributing factor to our buying in this location. It's pleasant to walk beside it.
I'd forgotten that I enjoy madrigals, like these: The Book of Madrigals: Amarcord performing Renaissance songs. 🎶
We did a little 1.2km loop walk at Limeburners Creek Wetland in Whangārei. We saw a few birds, including this probably leucistic Mallard. Note the tiny duckling behind the small duck at bottom right. 🐦
Our perceptions are skewed by the news media that outrages us for profit, but there is much much more going on in the world. This essay is the single most interesting and most important thing I've read all year. Here's just one quote:
We have built the safest civilisation in human history while convincing ourselves that we live in the most dangerous. Billions of people experienced measurable improvements in health, safety, and material conditions in 2025. That progress didn’t make the news. But it happened anyway, one vaccine, one school meal, one kilowatt-hour at a time.
This is what the beginnings of a 250,000 solar panel installation looks like.
I've suffered from Gastric Reflux for years, though it's getting better now. This PDF from The Centre for Strong Medicine in Australia provides a lot of useful and detailed information, including explaining which gym exercises can make reflux worse, and why.
This is interesting — Fix The News 321: Brain epochs 🧠 🌟:
In one of the world’s most comprehensive studies of how neural wiring changes from infancy to old age, scientists in Cambridge have identified the five major “epochs” of human brain development. Analysis of almost 4,000 MRI scans shows the brain shifts through five distinct wiring phases, with major transitions at the ages of nine, 32, 66 and 83.
I have one more shift ahead of me …
Today, with a new bird-watching friend, H, I visited the Waipū Bird Sanctuary. We saw lots of Oystercatchers, Godwits, gulls, NZ Dotterels, ducks and a few other birds, but of particular note was a bird new to me — the Ruddy turnstone 🐦 :
An annual circumpolar breeder on Arctic and subarctic tundra, the ruddy turnstone is one of around 40 Arctic breeding wading bird species that migrate south and reach New Zealand.
I mainly enjoyed The Complete Detective Siv Drummond Mysteries: by Gretta Mulrooney. 📚
I'd already read another series by this author, and the first of the books in this series. Book 5 didn't grab me so much for some reason.
A fellow down the road breeds and protects rare Cape Barren geese. 🐦
Today I spotted half a dozen of them near the river and was struck by how very big they are:
Length: 85 cm
Weight: 5.3 kg (male), 3.8 kg (female)
Such a delight, listening to Handel's Messiah - Lausanne Cathedral 2025, all 2 hours 20 of it. 😁 🎶
Micro.Blog photo challenge: Home. 📷
Traditional Christmas morning at the beach. ☀️
Micro.Blog photo challenge: Feast. 📷
For the Pacific Wave Appreciation Society. 🌊
At Mangawhai, 40Km south of Ruakākā.
Micro.Blog photo challenge: Travel. 📷
Micro.Blog photo challenge: Baking. 📷
Ohhh, can't wait for this movie to come out mid-2026. It looks delightful and hilarious: The Sheep Detectives. Do watch the trailer.
n this witty, new breed of mystery, George (Hugh Jackman) is a shepherd who reads detective novels to his beloved sheep every night, assuming they can’t possibly understand. But when a mysterious incident disrupts life on the farm, the sheep realize they must become the detectives. As they follow the clues and investigate human suspects, they prove that even sheep can be brilliant crime-solvers.
Micro.Blog photo challenge: Grinch. 📷
The sun rose at 06:02 on this Summer Solstice and I went to the beach to watch it. ☀️
Haere mai te Raumati.
