Two locals have befriended us, a couple of wandering Mallard ducks, Alice and Oscar started turning up at our place at 5pm on the dot for some bread crusts and fresh water.  I suspect they’ve been displaced due to the destruction of the football field and waterway access, down the road.  Though being so close to the harbour there is no shortage of water birds in the area.

Austin was pretty keen on these birds at first, but, now they have come to some kind of understanding, though Austin is frequently disgruntiled by the many liberties they are taking in his domain.  Sneaking in for his cat biscuits even!

A close encounter.  Cheeky things.  Quite a treat for the kids, and myself, they are interesting characters, we give them plenty of fresh water and watch them groom themselves fastidiously.  I’m hoping they’ll eat slugs and snails, we do find them fossiking in the rocket bed by the back door.  Otherwise, they mostly just hang out with us in the garden.  Sweet life.

One of Luna’s photos, early early morning out with the camera…

How about this for a view in the morning?  Beautiful Kawau Bay.

Fun times at nana’s place, Luna and Blake put together this large nest on the back deck, I even got to try  it out myself while Blake snoozed.

Mum’s garden is a bit of a wild one, some veges and herbs self-seeding about the place (cat nip of course).  Some older trees, and plenty of flowers ready to be picked, and nana doesn’t mind a bit…  Quite a lot to explore if you’re small and like flowers and insects and stuff.

Slaters.

Blake loves bugs on him, even reaching out his hand for airplanes to land on.

And skinks!  Are there skinks?  Absolutely everywhere, I managed to catch a few so we could have some close looks, this little one was quite content to look at us as much as we were keen on checking him out.

I know it’s obvious, but sea stars are some of my favourite animals.

So while Luna was after as many green lipped mussels she could cram into her hat, I was oooh-ing and aaaah-ing about some stunning sea stars.

Look how many they are?  They were just amazing, lots of little (and *cough* big) getting up close with these babies.  Each was unique, their colours so varied.  They felt like jeweled reptiles to touch, and I remembered what a deadly predator they are, exuding their stomachs onto their victim, then slowly digesting them…  I’m glad I’m not a mollusc.

This one was mauve!

So many, oozing and squeezing into the rocks.

Really, there is so much to explore and see at the beach.  A good day at Piha is completely exhausting for us all, clean water and life in and around the rocks.

A bit too wild for swimming in the sea for the little ones, though we found a perfect tidal pool, complete with tiny fish.

Luna is really keen on green lipped mussels just now, and she was bagging any she could find.  After a converstation about only taking empties with us, and remembering that there was an animal inside the shells, we reduced the risk of finding smelly shells in the back yard.

And limpets!  Luna found these ones.

Beautiful day.

Watching the waves.

Sand and space.

I had an art teacher talk to me about the limitless greys you can see in the clouds.  This was during a still life painting we worked with a purely black and white palette.

Yesterday, I recalled this conversation after I came upon this dead gull on the beach.  I was quite dried and preserved and the feathers were an amazing variety of silvers and greys.

Grey is probably one of those tricky hues to capture with a camera, but I had to try!

Reptilian claws…

There were many dead birds on the beach this day, and many more alive in the skies and on the water.

In sorting out my work room I have unpacked some sketch books.  So exciting, some drawing projects as well as designs for other ideas, including set design for a sci fi play.  From AGES ago.

Above is the original drawing for my tattoo, I was making drawings of marine animals, here are some more…

I love tube worms.

Inspired by art work in some old undersea books.

Gotta love water colour pencils for vibrant drawings.

Pencil and ink..

Last night I took these photos of the monarch butterfly eggs as some had turned quite dark.  Anticipating they may be nearly ready to hatch, we checked early this morning and we have some tiny caterpillars creeping around the leaves!  Very exciting, I just hope they don’t demolish the plant entirely.

A few weeks ago we went to Kelly Tarltons, it was fun, the stingrays were amazing!  But I felt pretty bad for the penguins, such a small and indoor space for them, at seemed grim really.

But the smaller tanks with seahorses, eels and other smaller fish were cool, these were the most memorable tanks to explore when I was a kid, almost like real rock pools.  Above is a photo of a mermaid’s purse, the name given to the egg case of a skate, ray or small shark, I was so excited having only seen photos and dried ones from other people’s collections.  The cases are usually found tangled in seaweed washed up on the beach and it is so named as the oval case has a loops somewhat like handles on either end, that entangle the egg case in seaweed so it stays put. The one in the photo still contained the embryo, which amazingly was moving around, so cool!

Just a bit of an experiment here, I kept some patterns for this rather boring animal mobile I found a while back, and decided to make up the giraffe one.  Turned out pretty cute, I added the mane and stitched on the patches and the beady eyes.  I also discovered, all too late, that I did not give him a tail, still tossing up whether I should just safety pin one on, like a true punk giraffe would, as I’m sure it’s one of those big ‘don’ts’ when you live with a toddler…

I discovered a little Oxychilus cellarius, also sometimes referred to as Hyalina cellaria (kindly identified by one of my shell club colleagues!) sliming along the mulch under my parsley plants a couple of days ago…

It is not, as I first thought, a native, but was apparently introduced to New Zealand, originally from British Isles and western Europe.

The first time I have found a live one, and was amazed at how blue the animal is. The translucent wee shells are often turned up in under growth when fosiking around in the garden.

There’s not much info out there at the moment but it’s still pretty exciting stuff!

It seems that the tenticles were badlyy damaged and the mantle itself is approximately 2 metres long.

On the Reuters website there is a short clip of the animal as it is briefly examined.
And on the News.com.au….