Day 308: November 8th – Wellington, NZ

A sunny but cool day with brisk morning winds

       After yesterday’s and last night’s rains, we didn’t quite know what to expect this morning, but Mother Nature took good care of us once again and blessed us with sunny skies.  The winds were out of the south.  Now back home, that means warming conditions, but here, south means Antarctica.  And so the winds were chilly, brining the temps down into the 40s but also blowing the bad weather away.

 

       Our first order of business today was a quick bus tour around the city of Wellington.  We made our way up to the highest point in the area and had wonderful views of the city and its harbour.  What’s more, we had excellent views of a new life bird called a Tui.  Tui’s are the largest of a group of New Zealand birds known as the honeyeaters and indeed, this bird was captured by the camera while taking advantage of nectar bearing flowers up here at the summit of this mountain.

                           

      We then travelled to the Botanical Gardens to see the Rose Gardens which were close to being in full bloom.  The flowers were spectacular and the birding was not all bad either.  Still, this is an urban setting and therefore the most common urban bird just about everywhere in this world is the House sparrow.  We did get the common blackbirds which seem to be everywhere we visit lately as well, a close-up photo-op of the Song thrush,

       and a second shot at the beautiful Chaffinch in a true garden setting.
 

     

        An afternoon stroll around the wharf failed to turn up anything  new, so that will have to wait until we visit the South Island and Blenheim and the Milford Sound over the next two days.