Day 4406: New Zealand's #1 bird, Update and Did You Know?

      

"Memories": collage, ink drawing, digital.

  

Want music?

    

Click : Rose Royce, Car Wash

 

  

 

 

2GN2S

A smelly penguin wins New Zealand’s bird election.

It’s noisy, smelly, shy — and New Zealand’s bird of the year. The hoiho, or yellow-eyed penguin, won the country’s fiercely fought avian election on Monday, offering hope to supporters of the endangered bird that recognition from its victory might prompt a revival of the species

New Zealand is a country where nature is never far away and where a love of native birds is instilled in citizens from childhood. “Birds are our heart and soul,” said Emma Rawson, who campaigned for the fourth-placed ruru, a small brown owl with a melancholic call. New Zealand’s only native mammals are bats and marine species, putting the spotlight on its birds, which are beloved and often rare. The karure, which has performed a real-life comeback since the 1980s, with conservation efforts increasing the species from five birds to 250 — took second place overall.

A karure, or Chatham Islands black robin pictured on Chatham Island in Sept. 2016 is runner-up to a hoiho or
yellow-eyed penguin in the New Zealand Bird of the Year competition, announced Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. )

I'm starting the day with a call to the plumber.

Not the best way to start a day, but I am smiling, sort of, because it is minor and could be worse. 

It can always be worse. I have a call into Jr., he will be today's hero.

 

  

 

A 3+ minute video, Dachshund,  here 

 

 

 

  

 

Just because ...

  

 

 

Indian Pea Fowl

 

 

Wednesday's Smiles ...