General random chat stuff

[George Hobson]

Ming [that's his name right??] is cuuute!

[Amber Calman]

Awwweeeesssooommmeeeeee!!! I'm at 363 so just over half way there

I'm sure you will easily beat me at my speed :P

Yes Ming, but st arnardians call him Alphonso, which means mango or something.

[George Hobson]

Yeah well you had the very large YBNZ topic!
St arnardians?

[Amber Calman]

Yeah well you had the very large YBNZ topic!
St arnardians?

Exactly and now I'm too slow. I need to speed up, where is the fuel?

Dwellers of the St Arnard/Nelsonlakes area.

[Oscar Thomas]

My name is orange now, isn't that something. How long till Bird of the Year?

[George Hobson]

Woop Woop. BOTY - is it October?

[Liam Ballard]

Got up close to a kingfisher the other day, about 2 metres away
... pretty stoked because they are meant to be pretty shy.

[Oscar Thomas]

That's awesome Liam, what area are you in? I've been hearing a lot of Kingfishers calling today too.

[Liam Ballard]

In the Waikato, north of Hamilton.

[Liam Ballard]

I was headed back from Raglan after a day at the beach (didn't see much in the way of birds, some SIPOs etc, but not a lot. A good day though) and we were all driving back home. On the way, Mum saw a 'strange bird, maybe just a weird duck', and Dad was good enough to turn around so I could get a look. It was a bittern, just wandering around in the paddock! It didn't pay the cars any attention, and so we got out and I got a few photos. Once we were within about 15m it just froze. Eventually it took off, and when we got home I looked it up in my field guide. It didn't seem to indicate that this rare, secretive, elusive bird would be found anywhere near a major road, or in a completely dry paddock...
Maybe it was just confused, but I don't know what it would be doing (or how I could be so lucky)!
Any ideas as to why it was so chilled? Maybe it had been domesticated at some point, but I don't know...