The drive home from Clive to Lower Hutt was a pleasant one.
Warm and sunny weather make a drive more enjoyable. I was less pleased, however, with what I found at the Pekapeka wetland reserve just South of Hastings. I have visited it many times before, in conditions varying from flood to drought. This time, the problem was the infestation of the floating fern, Azolla rubra. Though it has many uses including stock feed, it is not doing the bird life a lot of good at Pekapeka. It can double its biomass in 3 to 5 days and that doesn’t leave a lot of room for anything else. These wetlands are normally home to swans and swallows, coots, dabchicks, shags and ducks. In my first cautious stroll around the walkways, I thought the place was deserted. It was not until I processed this image on the computer that I found the distinctive white blaze of an Australian coot (about one third in from the right, on the centre line).
There were a few small patches of clear water, and after a while a pair of black swans appeared from under the boardwalk.
After a nice coffee and slice of Louise cake in the excellent Vault cafe in Dannevirke, we carried on South to the Manawatu Gorge, where I stopped for a slow shot of the spinning turbines in the Apiti wind farm above the river.
At home, the weeds in our garden had proliferated, but some are quite photogenic, including this heartsease or wild pansy.
This is the first day of the last month of this as a daily blog.
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