Monday, November 26, 2018

Storm and a dead dolphin

Heavy rain is forecast but the sun was shining early on and this lulled us into not quite watching the approaching weather carefully enough. Suddenly there was a huge torrential downfall shortly followed by a load crack of thunder directly above.

 Sitting under a small sun umbrella with a metal scope, metal tripod, metal binoculars and camera watching the birds suddenly felt quite vulnerable. We decided to make a run for it  to the shelter of a very large macrocarpa tree not too far away.. I then imagined that tomorrows news would relate the story of two people crushed by a very large macrocarpa tree

Later DOC phoned to say they were coming to help bury a dolphin that had been washed up about a kilometre up the beach and so we headed there and later the others joined us after  we had by then dug a reasonable sized pit in the sand above the high tide mark. DNA samples were taken and measurements were made.  A Karakia, a  Maori prayer, was conducted before we buried this unfortunate Common Dolphin







 More to follow...……………..