Do you love, or do you hate pukeko?
Patience paid off for Waikanae's Roger Smith recently, with a beautiful picture of a pukeko chick. A keen amateur photographer he was aware of the large flock of pukeko, including some nesting near the Waimanu Lagoons.
"The pukekos next near to the beach in agapanthus and I saw a chick about two days old venturing out for the first time."
Crawling along the ground on his stomach he got to within about three metres of the birds and observed them for about an hour.
The family group were all feeding the chick and he snapped about 160 pictures. The picture of two adults feeding the chick was a big hit on Facebook.
"It seems to be touching a chord with many people...mainly for the cuteness." Although he was very "close to the action" he was not spotted by the birds as he was hidden by bushes.
He refers to pukeko as "marmite birds" that people either "love or hate" and he finds them very interesting.
Driven On The Akatarawa Rd Lately?
If so, its good to know you are still alive and reading this.
We have a function to go to over Christmas up that way and having heard a few hairy stories about the road, I went up there on Thursday to check it out. The road's ok, narrow and winding, but not much worse than a Wellington hill suburb. What was pretty scary was the behavior of other drivers. Three vehicles heading the other way at speed would have crashed into me if I hadn't been pulled off the road. I had pulled in to check the address when a truck came flying past, taking up all of the narrow road at speed. There is no way the driver would have been able to stop had they come around the corner immediately in front of me. The other two drivers came hurtling past as I had turned in to turn around and come back down the hill. They were also driving at speed and taking up most of the road. Coming back down I passed another car coming up and estimate that the safe speed to pass another car was about 30-35 kms.p.h. So, now we're thinking, do we go to the function or not.? Feels a bit like we're taking our life in our hands going up there. Drivers appear to be overconfident, and they are courting serious injury.
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