Acting coy

Back at Snells Beach in the Fidelis house. All day on the MacBook. Mostly Zoom meetings with emails taking up the rest of the time. Did spend some time this morning with the electrician who came to install some replacement outside lights, as the ten year old ones had rusted, and stopped working. He was also able to locate a faulty connection which was triggering a shut down; often unexpectedly.

At the end of the day's work I ran down to the mudflats at Southend, which is where I saw a pair of Kotuku Ngutupapa. The Royal Spoonbill was first recorded in New Zealand/Aotearoa in 1860 (three years after my Fraser ancestors arrived from Nova Scotia on the Breadalbane). The first record of them breeding here was in the 1940s.

It is only in the last ten years that they have become common in and north of Auckland. These two are probably part of a group of ten or so which appears to have settled in this area.

The one looking away is a male and the tuft of feathers on the back of its head stand almost vertically during courtship and conflict, but only at this time of the year. The spoon bill is very efficient at sifting through the sand and mud to gain valuable food items.

Eleven years ago on this day (25 November 2010) I posted my first blip. I have managed without too much difficulty (a consequence of my personality, I suggest) to post a photo every day since then.