Bird in the bow

It's Larus dominicanus, a Black-Backed Gull. For all you diehards out there.

For a birder, this would indeed be the gold at the end of the rainbow--a larid on the wing.

Oamaru is getting some exciting weather these days--cold winds and bursts of maddening rain and lightning. As my new local friend tells me, "We pay for every beautiful day we have here in New Zealand." Yesterday afternoon gave us this brilliant rainbow (a double bow actually) over the sea to the east. Then came a narrow break in the clouds, followed by a tremendous thunderstorm just as I arrived at the blue penguin colony down by the wharf. After just a couple minutes standing there I was absolutely soaked and the lightning was striking the surface of the sea only a few kilometers away, directly in front of me, but I stayed a while longer in the driving rain to see how the penguins would behave in the storm. I don't know how they managed their way onto the rocks from the water--the waves were the biggest I've seen them and violently smashing against the shore--I was amazed when the birds appeared out of nowhere, scurrying up the rocks. I don't understand how they do it.

Needless to say they didn't waste any time with sitting around and preening tonight. As soon as they reached the top of the rocks they split up and made for their individual burrows, running frantically out into the open and passing closely by people as I hadn't yet seen them do. Some young Asian women with smartphones poised apparently took the birds' aberrant courage for domesticity, and came running straight at them, yelling in loud excited voices, cutting off the birds' way to the burrows and making them hesitate and double back with obvious anxiety. After all these nights of frustration at the colony and after taking time in Monday's blip to reflect on it all, I had no reservations telling them to back off so the penguins could pass, which they did very graciously.

More often than not I'll avoid weather like that of tonight. To my dismay (given that I've romanticized the notion of capitalizing on every novel opportunity), I opt to stay dry many times over venturing out into the storm. But the birds kept me out in it this time, and the experience was such a fulfilling one. The rain hammering down, the lightning striking over the ocean, the thunder booming overhead, sensing in the penguins their tension and purposeful energy in needing to reach safety as quickly as they could...I'm loathe to put it in such a cheesy way but all I can think is that the whole thing made me feel alive.

Which isn't to say that I wasn't perfectly happy to crawl into bed with the electric blanket to keep me toasty warm while the rain pelted against the windows.