Six Months in a Leaky Boat - Split Enz

 Just when you think you have seen and heard everything Rock 'n' Roll has to offer along come

SPLIT ENZ

my own memory of them playing the Portsmouth Guildhall as the final gig of their 1982 Britsh Tour while supposedly refitting the Experimental Trials Vessel E.T.V. Whimbrel in the nearby Dockyard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXlswmbIxos

 Despite the continuing overnight chill and the all to fresh breeze and even the occassional

CLOUD BURST
there is little to complain about when your day kicks off with a KIWI, yes a genuine, bedouin Kiwi, read on!

Evenin' from New Zealand

Just wanted to say as an ex pat Brit brought up in Southampton and Verwood Dorset that I enjoy your daily rambles around your place. Keeps me up with the changes since I was doing much the same in the 1960s. No great rarities. Just the usual Chiffchaffs, Little Grebes and the like. Egyptian Goose, Cetti's Warbler, Little Egret you must be joking. Back then Dartford Warblers and Woodlarks were just hanging in there but Yellowhammers, Bullfinches, Tree Sparrows were two a penny and even the odd Cirl Bunting was still nesting on Southampton Common. Oh yeah and the dog rose in your latest post is Rosa rugosa originally from east Asia. We have one in our garden half a world away. Cheers Derek Onley - Keep Posting.

Continuing into a day when the conditions were much as described above, there was nothing new plucked from the Moth Traps with the best representatives, if we may call them that, being

EYED HAWK-MOTH

performing rather well, an as usual a rather lethargic

PRIVATE HAWK-MOTH
and a

WHITE ERMINE
showing its sunny-side-up while being overlooked by an

unusually confiding

GREY HERON

which didn't bat an eye-lid

even at a distance of a very few yards.
Doing the rounds in reverse order to clear the traps before the wet stuff closed in we returned to the Main Pond to find yet another Stranger on the Shore, following on from the recent

CETTI'S

and
REED WARBLER's

still attendent

MANDARIN DUCK

in preening mode with today's contribution being by way of what we feel sure Derek in N.Z. will not be pleased to know as a 'scarce and brief sighting'

of an extremely vocal male

YELLOWHAMMER
(unlikely to have reached double figures here across my own decade on perfect habitat)
Also across the Southern Sector another visit it would seem by none other than

SIR EDWIN LANDSEER
of
Stag at Bay / Monarch of the Glen fame, as along with the original

statue here in Portland Stone, there is now a second

in bronze which didn't seem to be bothering a

CARRION CROW issuing grief to a COMMON BUZZARD
among the towering Cumulus clouds and the now fully mature Tree Line.

We look foreward to welcoming more New Zealander's soon, if you would all kindly pass the link to Friends and Families, and might even publish a re-run of a most enthralling trip to North and South Islands back in 2008 - what a Country!!