Playing together

Overcast this morning and no rush to be down at Snells beach before sunrise, as the rising sun could not be seen. Nor any colour in the sky, even. The clear skies came later in the day. 

On my run I heard so many tui. And saw them. On telephone wires, television antennae, and in many different sorts of trees. All of them calling loudly to each other. As I started back I saw another tui in a tree, and thought it would make a good photo. Got the camera ready, only for it to be chased off by another tui who then perched on a branch in the daylight and waited for me to take its photo. This was to be my blip for today.

We were joined just after midday by daughter C and her two boys, and shortly after they arrived we saw that there was a pod of dolphins in Kawau Bay just a bit out from where the beach house is situated. I started with the binoculars, and was good (bloody spellcheck) quite disorganised using them, so I put the long lens on my Pentax and shortly after I did that these two dolphins sped along leaping out of the water and following a brief underwater surge, leapt again, and again, and again. This was their fifth and last leap. 

The near one looks bigger and darker, and I wonder if this is an adult and a younger dolphin. 

Earlier, while sweeping the deck and restoring the outside table to its proper place (shifted by a neighbour for us during the recent high winds), I found a weta. I had a go at a close up, which I'm pretty pleased with. 

After the weta and dolphins we all went down to Snells beach and had a picnic under a pohutukawa, and then took photos of us (including the two boys) with the signs they had made protesting at Government's intentions to change the Resource Management Act to allow the cutting down of big trees without the need to seek resource consent. I photographed the boys in the tree with their signs.

I'm going to put that photo, along with the ones of the tui and the weta on as extra photos, if I can manage to do so.