And I'm with Sofie – what was it exactly that Banks was supposed to have done, other than appear humble (with the odd slip and return to form)? I've been watching closely and it seems to me the…

Never though much of them until two huge trees down the street were chopped down within a few weeks of each other. I knew there were one or two birds living in them but the day the second tree went down the power lines across the road…

Having moved to on the edge of nowhere from Auckland, I'm constantly delighted at the birds round home – I felt very fortunate to have spotted a ruru whilst heading up the drive one evening. I've not spotted any tui, but there…

the last recent skeletal remains of which come from Trotters Gorge . . .

Trotter, eh? That's just the sort of thing he'd do to piss off the Greens.

When I first lived in Big O, I heard kakapo. (So did others, including an Acclimitisation Soc. officer.) They boomed late at night. in a good year

Wow. That's the kind of tale that puts the wondrous shivers up & down one's spine.

There were whekau round here – we know…

tui – & I suspect lyrebirds – are known to remember & transmit to offspring sounds.

There is a possibility – just – that they may pass on sounds on extinct birds...

o, we can only dream! – bird night & dawn chorus that used to be

D'y'know even the reo for 'adzebill' has been lost?

When I first lived in Big O, I heard kakapo. (So did others, including an Acclimitisation Soc. officer.) They boomed late at night. in a good year (not mast – beech dont grow here.)…

You see, that's why I dislike the idea of a ranked list – and did my humble best to disrail it.

That has to be a pun, right? Im which case, I'll vote for the whooping weka. Tim Flannery once said that he'd happily trade all of Kiri Te Kanawa's…

I love everyone from tui to pukeko to royal albatrossi to the rirerire/grey warblers currently setting up a nest in my trees.
The kaeaea who predates them (and the…

There are a bunch of them outside now making a hell of a racket...

That's what makes them so special. Crazy little buggers.
This morning (GMT) there are Crows attached to a roof behind our place and a plague of Homing Pigeons on the roof next door. I'll have the…

So that was Monday. On Tuesday, I'm delighted to announce, my darling (and some would say, long-suffering) Rebecca agreed to marry me. Which was nice,

Congrats buddy, and most especially to Rebecca.

Enjoy the snorkel!

And congratulations! The married / civil unioned state is a fine thing.

And a congratulations is in order for the engagement. Lovely.

Incidentally, hokioi is used in the south for…

I'm not voting for pukeko – or indeed any of the official bird list.
I voted for pouakai, on the grounds that it gave humans a run for their money. Aue, not enough of a run – the first lot cruelly extinguished pouakai's normal food supply, and it was one…

We're being beaten by the Takehe, which is like a rubbish version of the Pukeko – it can't even breed properly.

ALOL