A tui in Wales

When I joined Blipfoto  almost 9 years I wondered how to choose which journals to subscribe to, as the term was back then. I thought I'd try and pick people from as many different parts of the world as possible and to that end followed blippers based in India, China, Scandinavia, North and South America and so on. I also lighted upon a New Zealand psychiatrist who went by the name of Waipushrink. 

In the intervening years  some of my global blipfriends have fallen by the wayside but not Waipushrink. Over that long period of time I've admired his photographs of the sunsets and skyscapes of his beautiful land,  the unfamiliar wildlife and the street life of the Southern hemisphere, and at the same time have got to know a bit about his family and his work. He's often blipped the archetypal NZ bird the tui, with its magnificent green-sheened plumage and its  comical white wattle and I've listened to its extraordinary call. But I never imagined receiving this beautiful picture of a tui as a gift from Waipushrink and his wife in person. Yes! they are here in Pembrokeshire on a short stop-over in the UK en route to a conference in Iceland. The weather has been perfect, the coastal flora is at its best and the local birdlife has been blipped! 

Another marvellous spin-off from Blipfoto.