Scenes from Muriwai beach last night. Oh, the huge manatee.

Gulls and fisher

Half-valley truncated by the coast, south towards Mahia peninsula

Brightening headland, darkening ahead as a shower sweeps in from…

yeah, special water script!

must've been the cloud of the day around the country.

here's another of one of the real boats, i love the way she melts into her reflection

Your first of second triple set a pleasure to explore in the full-sized image.

Magic.

Wow Jackson, beautiful.

totally agree, cool pic.

Except this quiet earth has plenty of company on it. :-)

I've never seen a green flash! Awesome sauce. :-)

Last night, Ian!
Our first clear night for a while. The stars were brilliant. It was very cold, but worth it. :-)

Great capture Lilith! I had an intuition when the aurora alerts fired up last night that I shd let you know. There are pages on Facebook — which seem to be based in the south with people aurora-hunting, watching and photographing. Keep an eye on spaceweather.com for…

Brilliant, reminds me of the one and only Green Flash experience I had. Blink and you'll miss that : )

That lovely Land-ness monster also…

Fishing.

Land-ness monster.

Board walk.

aurora

Great shot Lilith. Also green with envy. :-)

When was this event ?
Was it part of the one on April 25 that took out most high frequency radio and shortwave for an hour or more?

see: here – I know it’s the __Huffington…

Another lovely thing here on my coast south of Dunedin!

To the naked eye the glow is faint, dimmer than the stars, and only subtly greenish. But…

Surfers were looking photogenic in the sunset.

;- )

and a sculpture called The Sound of Rain

Catching the skyline.

And the eyes of a stink bug

Here's one she took of me holding her cousin.

Oh brilliant, will she be posting some of her pictures?

Lovely, eerie-like. I first thought this was a group photographing the moon....

bands – bands of colour, not so variegated as yours
on the still tidal riverbank this morning.

Colour above

and below

Commentary track too.

Posted here because for days now she's been constantly saying "Bāba dài wǒ qù yóuyǒng!" – Daddy take me swimming! – and look at those lovely beach photos upthread. We always answer "When we get to NZ".

A newly finished flying rug

Photos on iPhone.

Because some twat 'updated' it to replace the frayed material edges with that telecon scribble.

And for the inventor we hope, get cracking on that one!

Just trying to grapple with the purported size of the plant-borne pendulous poop-packed polyethylene pouch proliferation,
With a sample…

and which way is 'up' ?
in the ocean it's always a bob each…

Go for it Hebe! Hope it goes really well.

Best of luck Hebe! Hope you have an assistant-organiser, I'd say that's almost the most important thing, to have someone to run around and round up the people you need when you need them and to run around adjusting them if necessary so that…

Thanks Sofie. Hope life is treating you will. Seems like a long time between drinks. :-)

vaguely threatening volcano Thanks too Chris. I’ve been trying to catch different angles on the ubiquitous motu puia (??). As above.

mysterious, looming, vaguely threatening volcano. Great shot.

Cool photos. I hear that trip is memorable. Our good friend Michael may have been the Skipper. He does that shared…

Just had a chance to notice these photos. That's one brilliant shot JP. likeitalot

Less of a Point, more of a bay!
But thanks for the wonderful calming pic, Russell! I feel I could dive right in. :-)

Thank you!

Slight worried about having put a bend in the beach ...

View of Anawhata.

I showed her this photo when she got home. She was dead chuffed. And then the "my spies are everywhere" implications sank in...

It really was. It would have been out of our range normally, but the old friend who organised the gathering maintains the property and got us a very good deal. There are a lot of wealthy folk with fancy dogs at Onetangi at this time of year.

I love this connection. <3

Also, Jackson – awesome crowd of oystercatchers!

The vessel in the pic of me looking at the water is the Spirit of New Zealand and contains the daughter of one Emma Hart. Here’s a better shot.

I’m a bit annoyed I didn’t get myself sorted in time for the 'king tide' this morning. This was the closest I got, with some wildlife at Mangere Bridge.

Have to try again another day.

These from Ohiwa beach in the BoP, and surrounds.

Indeed. Such light! Such colour! I feel like I need sunglasses just to look at the photos.

Tunnel beach is so beautiful! I understand why they dug the tunnel. :-)

From up here we can see from coast to coast.

It adds a nice crispness and depth if not overdone. Particularly good for low-contrast subjects like clouds. :-)

It's a nice ride out from Pt Chevalier. If I go right round the peninsula it works out about 20km.

Hi Russell, I'm with Lillith about one with the picnic table in it!

It's nice to see the complexity of Auckland city reduced to a manageable size, with its skyline appearing to be far in the distance, although those of us who are familiar with the location…

Yup. Russell may have been "only" out at Te Atatu, but what he's not telling us is that what he was doing there was photographing infinity.

I like the one with the picnic table very much. So small in that big space and with that ferocious sky.

The coast here seems to be specialising in cloud this summer, which is all very interesting…

Hi David, I wonder what part of the harbour your one was in? This beauty was resident in the Kaikorai Lagoon for a time. I have since seen two of them together there, which makes me wonder what the young spoonies look like! They…

That was a lovely walk, Lillith! When I wrote about it I spent ages tracking down information…

Go the Lumix, go the pie!!

Last night Finn, accompanied by early David Bowie, came up with this good-looking tarte Tatin: rhubarb and a couple of the early gravensteins from the garden. Then he photo’d it…

Cute!! :-)
Also Magritte .

I was thinking more of A Couple with Their Heads Full Of Clouds, which might look a little more like this. :-)

And over lunch I've been poking around Youku looking for an equivalent video to the one in the Smithsonian article, but I just can't find anything. Their were plenty of videos about the Wenchuan quake and its…

I can't see the video, sorry. I'm just getting a 404 where the video should be.

Lillith, that NatureWatch NZ website is brilliant, thank you! There is not too much to be found the web about NZ flora and fauna.

Also for rocky shore enthusiasts, the Otago University Marine Studies Aquarium Guide…

more stories on strange (earthquake) lights

Most interesting, I am pleased to know this!
:-)
And gosh, I have an odd fascination to known what the conversation in Chinese was of the video posted in the Smithsonian article – Chris Waugh to the rescue? Everything so serene and…

"It’s important to recognise no trained lifeguard would ever perform a rescue without a flotation device,” says Teresa Stanley of WaterSafe Auckland. This is because a drowning person will instinctively clutch at and…

They had a faulty compass ?? Nice that there was a happy ending and even the mail was saved. :-)

Near Dunedin.

I think that's a glasswort . Native which grows more typically in salt meadows.

As shipwrecks go, it was a fairly benign one

The beaches on Rangitoto are crazy. Mangrove and tussock.

Wow. Sounds like a story there?

Good lord!!
(ditto, Nora's jellyfish)