Sad sight

Crazy I know, but the lure of the T20 semi-final (NZ v England) was too much and I got up so I could watch it live............at 3.00am!  Great game and definitely worth making the effort for.........and pleased I didn't let my fading energy convince me to return to bed at about 5.30, when things weren't looking as good for NZ as we'd have liked.  As this team has so often done, they slowly clawed their way back in to contention then hit the throttle at the perfect time to bring about a victory with an over to spare.  So, at 6.30am I was fully awake and marvelling in their abilities.  Took the opportunity to make an early trip to the Boulder Bank to check out the stilts.....

I knew something wasn't right before I parked the car.......no sign of either stilt at the pond or on the nest.  I parked then walked down to the nest where this single egg remained.  A quick look around the area revealed nothing which was both good and bad at the same time.  My fear was that dog walkers hadn't heeded the sign to keep dogs on leashes during spring/nesting season and a dog got to the chick and in so doing, scared the parents off.  The abandoned egg looked so sad :'(  With little else going on and rain beginning to fall I turned around and headed home.

In to work at 10.00 for what was to be a couple of hours.  I left at around 2.30........just needed to get my head around a couple of things connected to the exam prep work I'm doing with F.  Soooooo much paper!  I'll be back there tomorrow to make a bigger dent in the pile.

Home after a couple of chores completed and not surprisingly, as soon as I stopped the tiredness hit me like a 10-tonne truck.  Early (ish) night tonight I think.

In COVID news, 185 new community cases today, 84 in hospital and 10 in ICU.  National 1st vaccine shot: 90% of eligibles; second shot: 80% of eligibles.  Taranaki has confirmed 6 community cases so it's slowly moving south.....