Starling sings sunset

Finished early today; or at least started to, and then saw some emails I couldn't ignore or leave. Nevertheless, I got home early enough for a run before dark.

Somewhere a starling was singing as I saw this one on a wire in Grey Lynn. Not singing. But nicely silhouetted in front of the sky at sunset.

After watching a group of teenage boys using the skateboard ramp in Grey Lynn Park, I continued on and (still within the park) saw the manhole cover I have added as an extra. Frankton (where Surecast Metals has a foundry) is a suburb of Hamilton. The first years of S' life were spent in a house in Frankton. 

The variety of cast iron manhole covers which I have noticed since having my attention drawn to them, suggests to me that New Zealand could be much more self sufficient than we have tended to be in the last fifty years or so. Then, it was often a matter of necessity; foreign exchange was hard to come by, so we made our own rather than import. That has all changed.

Back to birds; Tui were prolific beside the Arch Hill Reserve Walkway when I was walking or jogging there during lockdown. When I last went along there, I heard one Tui and saw none. I speculate that the return of hundreds of thousands of cars during the working week has so changed the air that the Tui (and other birds) have gone elsewhere.