Quick update - stars, birds and dinner.

Odd to see Orion upside down just now. The stars are all different down here and some of them we never see up north. Haven't seen the Southern Cross yet but we're close to Auckland and there's some light pollution so I haven't really looked yet - the cloudy skies are also a bit in the way. Today has been another typical day, short but heavy showers (the great big water tank is full) interspersed with hot sunny periods. However NZ winter is on it's way and they've had snow down south inland from Christchurch. Added to all this the moon is the wrong way round!

Spotted a furtive Grey Warbler this morning, endemic to New Zealand (which a lot of birds aren't) it's just about the only warbler down here. It moved too quickly for me to take a photo but here's a google-pic of one. We have seen quite a range of birds where we are including Tuis, Pīwakawakas which are a bit like Australian Grey Fantails and a Kereru, which is a great big pigeon which goes 'whoosh-whoosh' as it flies overhead. However thanks to rats, which wiped out a lot of native species many years ago, and the Acclimatisation Society most birds here are European. The Acclimatisation Society existed in the 18th Century and it's goal was to displace native birds with ones from back home such as blackbirds, thrushes and sparrows (never seen so many sparrows since I was 10 years old!) They wanted to hear the dawn chorus like what is was back home - homesick philistines they were!

 Dinner tonight was hoki, kumaru and hubbard squash. The hoki or Blue Grenadier fish is a meaty white fish, kumara is sweet potato and the squash I found at the side of the road. This is a real agricultural area and I'd been out for an extended run for an hour and a half and just coming round the corner back to base one of  these sat in the middle of the road - obviously just fallen off the back of a lorry - well what could I do? Kumaras are a staple round here, people of polynesian origin apparently live on them and they come in various varieties - we had red and white ones tonight. Tasty!!