A Date with Tilly

Every now and then our friends will phone up and say "Shall we take Tilly out on a date?" or something like that. It's an old-fashioned name, and Tilly's an old-fashioned girl.

Tilly Twinfold is my old two-burner gas barbecue cooker. She's a little corker, and, with her small blue bottle, a bit of salad, some crusty rolls and a few sausages, is just the thing to make a pleasant evening on the beach even pleasanter.

Here's what it looked like at Pilot Bay last Sunday. Bliss!

The Gumboot Song

How to stop dogs barking.

The Otorohanga Bird House

First, before we have even gone in the gate we spot a couple of Northern Hemisphere migrants over-wintering in New Zealand.

A Pied Stilt and a couple of sorry-looking Godwits. They do have two legs. They're just resting one.

A beautiful cryptically-coloured lime Gecko is well camouflaged.

Kereru, the wood pigeon, is a beautiful green with purple highlights, and has her cream apron on. She's about three times the size of the ones in Trafalgar square.

One of our hardy and adaptable Pukeko...

Here is a series of photos showing the hatching of a Northern Brown Kiwi Chick. The hen only lays one egg, and they are a huge proportion of her weight. It is about six times the size of that of an average bird. So, imagine the Kiwi, which is about the size of a farmyard (or battery) hen, yet lays an egg the size of an emu's!

And finally the kiwis of course! Because they are nocturnal, the room is kept dark, and you can't see well because Claire didn't want to use the flash and disturb them. I haven't been this close to a kiwi since the last time I was here, which was at least 20 years ago. I'd forgotten how odd-shaped they are - all round-bottom and big feet. They are fast and busy, almost trotting along, and constantly probe, probe with that long bill of theirs. Amazing birds.

Thank you Claire for the images.

Well, that's about the size of it all

Click these words (you'll need Flash)  The Scale of the Universe , let it load, click 'Play' and then slide the slider.

Thanks to Andy Holroyd from 'Trousers to Grow Into'

Revision August 2018: If you cannot get the above link to work, use this video version below.  Unfortunately it doesn't have the slider so you can't pause to read, nor go in and out, and it goes too fast (for me, at least) but if you click on the 'settings' cog in the bottom rhs of the youtube control bar, you can set the speed to 25% which slows it down to a goodish speed.

Arapuni Hydroelectric Power station

Here's a little jaunt-post today through the green dairy farms of the Waikato to the recently renovated Arapuni Dam. It is still generating power today despite being commissioned 'way back in 1929. Only one-way traffic is allowed on the top of the dam, but there was room for us to stroll. And a fisherman. We said "Hello Tony! How's the fishing today?" even though we'd never met him in our lives before. He was a very friendly chap.

Our old farm.

Thank you Claire for the images.

Eye Candy Day 18