New Zealand Garden Diary: Feeding the Right Kind of Birds

There are a lot of birds in our garden, but very few species come to the bird table, unlike in the UK. I mostly see sparrows (non-native), silvereyes (native), chaffinches (non-native), greenfinches (non-native) and starlings (non-native). The starlings are real bullies, scaring every other bird away and demolishing fat balls in a matter of hours. So it was a relief when the Sausage Shed stall woman (who sells the fat balls) gave me a method of putting the starlings off. 

A way to keep starlings away from the bird seed and fat balls and let waxeyes/silvereyes fight amongst themselves (Click to see options for using the image)

Living in New Zealand: Full Moon Rising Over Lyttelton

I’m writing this on the shortest day of the year (21st June) . I can’t imagine that when this is published the moon will look as amazing as it did at the start of June, but you never know. We were walking up for a happy hour beer and seeing it over the pine trees and the lights of Lyttelton was just magical. Cartoons don’t do it justice, so I hope it is as good tonight.

Living in New Zealand: Summit Road Meanderings

I often walk up to the summit road above Lyttelton, usually to generate cartoon ideas for Arctic Circle or other comics. The views can be glorious, but even when the weather closes in, it is a great place to be.

Except, perhaps, in an earthquake.

I am very risk-averse.

Living in New Zealand: More of My Favourite Bars on London Street (and What I Miss)

We are lucky (despite some idiotic actions recently concerning border control and quarantine) that New Zealand is at Level 1. This means all the bars are open normally and Lyttelton has come back to life.

We still miss Billie, but we get our dose of dog going into most of the bars in Lyttelton.

London Street has come back to life apart from those lots that are still empty all these years after the earthquake.

Addendum

I was in Facebook today (6th July), deleting more of my personal photos (a long process) and came across some from 2011. The boyf and I visited Lyttelton a month after the earthquake and his old restaurant (London Street) and Number 6 were still standing. Only just.