In Black and White

I met this distinctive looking black and white cat while out for a lunchtime walk.  

Shy at first, it was soon rolling around on the warm concrete.

Early Riser

This beautiful cat greeted me on my morning run, or at least didn’t scamper when I came running up.

After a brief visit we went our seperate ways.  Or rather I left and the cat just stayed where it was enjoying the morning.

Easter Bunnies

It’s Good Friday today, so you can imagine my excitement when I saw a pair of bunnies run across my path.  You can barely make them out but just look for the fluffy white tail.

 
Being around dawn I then saw quite a few more including two black bunnies that perhaps used to be domestic pets.

  

And just before I finished I saw a couple of baby bunnies, one of whom let me get close enough to take a portrait.

  

Cute to the power of four.

I just had to stop when I saw these four adorable bichons, all with pink bows on their heads!

  
They were very well trained and were told to sit for my photo.  And then they all got a treat for being so good!

Modern Times Dinosaurs

It’s not hard to see a link between dinosaurs and modern birds when you live in New Zealand.  This feels especially true when watching pukekos with their fierce looking beak, beady eyes, and T-Rex type posture.

This pukeko had a baby in tow.  Which perhaps explains the glare on mum’s face (or maybe pukekos always look like that).

Of course it is much harder to imagine the baby pukeko as a fierce predator, we don’t tend to think of dinosaurs as ridiculously fluffy!

Lots of fluffy

This morning started beautifully after a couple days of rainy weather.

  
Lots of animals and people were out making the most of it after being cooped up.  I saw three seperate broods of ducklings, including these paradise ducklings.

  
There were also lots of people whitebaiting, going for a run, or walking their dogs.  One small doggy was super excited to be out, and came bounding up to me.

  
There was also a particularly cute wee black poodle that looked hilarious as it ran around the park, big boofy ears bouncing up and down, unfortunately smartphones don’t come with long lenses so it’s only captured in my mind!

A visit to an alpaca farm

I visited an alpaca farm with a group of friends to photograph the baby alpacas that had recently been born there.  Our host Martin gave us a tour, assuring the timid among us that they were not likely to spit or cause trouble.  They were lovely animals, and aside from a curious few, they mostly ignored us.  Some of the young alpacas were quite interested in the children that we had with us, following them and sort of galloping around them.

I was amazed at how different one alpaca could look from another.  They have quite an interesting look and their different “hairstyles” make them feel oddly human-like.

This was especially the case when I noticed that some of them had what looked like a gold earring!

Totally Tuis

On a recent trip to Wellington, I visited the Wellington Botanic Gardens, home of many NZ native birds including lots of Tuis.  These birds were fascinating and frustrating at the same time, posing perfectly then flying at high speed through the air. When they sit still perched in a tree they are very majestic looking birds, and it’s easy to see why they are also known as Parson birds.

However they also can be quite silly when there are a group of them.  I spent quite a while watching three of them at play in a fountain.  They would frolic in the water, happy to share with one other bird, but as soon as a third approached chaos ensued.

Tuis are generally quite territorial and will chase off other birds that try to live in “their tree”, meaning if you have a tui you probably don’t also have a bellbird despite them liking quite similar types of trees.

Fluffy Blue Eyed Invaders

We have temporarily relocated, and the new house has a neighbour with three very fluffy Birman cats. These cats expect to be allowed inside any house they want, possibly because they are so adorable that nobody has ever said “no” to them. After only a couple days one of them made their first attempt at coming inside. Aslan (he has touches of ginger) first got lots of cuddles, then made straight for the open front door, where he was told a very firm “no”. The next morning the other two came out from behind my car as the front door was opened and ran straight at it, these Birman invaders were also stopped. And tonight we found this one lurking in the bushes by the open back door.

I expect it’s only a matter of time before they succeed and we find a fluffy cat sitting on the sofa with an innocent but smug look on it’s face.

Rata Honey

There is a small shop, set back off the main street of Takaka in Golden Bay, where a local man produces and sells spirits (made from local ingredients he grows himself http://tekiwi.co.nz).

In that shop was an adorable wee shop dog named Rata Honey. She was very friendly, but also quite well behaved, she even had her own seat next to a suit of armour. From that seat she can fulfil her role as superviser, watching her female owner packing and labelling product, or take a well earned snooze.

This last photo isn’t upside down, this is what happened when I came closer to take her picture.