Making Good Some Promises

Firstly, some writing links for Steph. The two sites I post my writing to (when the Muse has had enough sleep) are:

Sunday Scribblings and Poetry Thursday

Other writing sites I've explored include:

Moondance (Celebrating Creative Women)
Women's Creativity
The Creativity Portal
The Practically Creative Quarterly
The Soul Food Cafe

And for Shaz, some exercise and healthy eating sites:

Cool Running My favourite running site - with a really good beginner's training programme. It also has a good links section under the Resources tab and great message forums.

Active Women Run Walk Series
Healthy Eating.Net
Health Castle

And of course there's always www.weightwatchers.co.nz. Hmm... looking for good diet sites was a lot harder than looking for writing sites!

I really should sort this template out and post some links down the side of this blog. I'm really starting to find it very limiting, and the green is getting to me. I sense a change in the wind.

And wind there certainly was today. I spent another five hours in the Sanctuary on a beautiful spring morning. When I arrived the sky was blue and everything was still. I was the first to walk up the valley, surrounded by the call of Bellbirds, Tui, Grey Warblers, Saddlebacks, Shining Cuckoo and of course Hihi. A short list of nestboxes and mild temperatures left me in no mood to hurry. The recent rain had left everything fresh, although it made for an interesting, slightly uncontrolled slide down to the Turbine Track nestboxes. Other than the resident male coming to check me out a couple of times not much was going on, though the nest looks like it could be nearly ready to go.

On to the next site. Saddlebacks were everywhere, hammering out their warning calls as I approached. One of the staff had located two nestboxes that had somehow been left off our list. I had an interesting time trying to find them, managing to find then lose the transect, then find it again, then somehow head West instead of East, hauling myself up from one end of the Round the Lake track to the other, realising what I'd done, then having to turn around and slide back down the bank again. How the seat of my trousers escaped intact I don't know.

Eventually I found the new nestboxes in an easily accessible and sunny young area of regrowth. Both were clearly visible from the same position. I settled in for a tranquil 45 minutes of observations, disturbed only by a helicopter that for some reason spent several minutes hovering above me. Having watched for the correct period of time and only seen the resident male I checked the nestbox. One egg! The first for our breeding pairs! Both the male and the female entered the feeder as I returned to the track, so the female was obviously biding her time somewhere high in the trees.

From there it was off to try to find out what our resident Lothario was doing. A brief check of the nice nestboxes we'd left for him and his mate confirmed no action, but a bird was consistently calling back down the stream near the track. I returned in that direction, only to hear a male calling from the area I'd just vacated. As I stood there the calls gradually came closer and a Hihi was visible flying East along the ridgeline. Determined, I staked out the nearest feeder, to be rewarded by the sight of my wandering male territory calling in various spots around me. I ignored the rain of debree that was pouring down on me from the Saddlebacks foraging above, and felt even more vindicated when the female Hihi appeared from the same direction as the male, fed, then returned immediately the same way. It now appears we may have a nest somewhere other than in the provided accommodation. Very inconsiderate!

The rest of the afternoon was comparitively uneventful, other than the rising Northerly that is currently blowing past outside, and culminated in cider and the Americana Show on the Tivoli in the sun in our rear courtyard. No trip to the pool this weekend, and it's unlikely I'll get one in tomorrow, with weights in the morning, a run at lunchtime, and a chance to sit with a group of wonderful women tomorrow night. I'll have to save the big going underwater moment for my lesson with Lesleigh on Tuesday.