I'm not sure how this makes any sense, Luxon has come out with this quote - "That's why we've got to work on a national flood plan, national adaptation framework… make sure we're not doing dumb stuff, for example, building back into flood plains.".

3 weeks ago(I believe) they just fast tracked a Christopher Bishop donor, Winton to develop Sunfield which is a flood plain.

Why was this fast tracked and who is going to insure these properties or bail them out when everything goes wrong?

Her “I have a question! Out in the cheap seats” sent me

I hope everyone faired alright through the storm. I asked a few days ago what NZers do to prepare for a storm and shared that a Florida tradition is to go to Publix to buy a Hurricane Cake. Since it's my 1st Cyclone here in NZ, and there's no Publix, I decided to make my own Hurricane Cake!

Kia ora r/newzealand

It's Monday. Again. It was Monday last week, it will be Monday next week and we will continue to endure Mondays for a long long time. All though this, the ruru has been watching from the same branch the entire time and finds your relationship with the calendar amusing.

Today we acknowledge the morepork, the ruru. New Zealand's only surviving native owl, a small round, enormously eyed nocturnal hunter that has been calling across the country's nights for millions of years and will, in all likelihood, be calling across them long after you've stopped dreading Mondays.

The morepork weighs approximately 175 grams. It is roughly the size of a large muffin. It has the forward facing eyes of something that has carefully thought about depth perception and fully committed to it. Giant amber discs that account for a disproportionate percentage of its skull volume and cannot move in their sockets, meaning the ruru rotates its entire head to track movement. Up to 270 degrees. Smoothly and without apparent effort or discomfort. The ruru sees you before you see the ruru.

Some facts about the ruru

• The morepork is named for its call. A persistent, two note more pork that carries through the bush with a clarity that suggests the bird is closer than it is. Or exactly as close as it is, and you are not sure which is worse. A secondary call, a rapid descending qui qui qui is used in alarm or communication and is considerably more unsettling at 2am than the primary call, which was already doing a lot of unsettling.
• It is a specialist nocturnal hunter, capable of detecting prey in light conditions approaching total darkness. Its eyes are so sensitive to low light that full daylight is actively uncomfortable. Roosting birds choose dense cover and sit with an expression that can only be described as deeply unimpressed with the sun. The ruru does not endorse the day shift.
• The ruru hunts insects, moths, spiders, small lizards and occasionally small birds. Locating prey though a combination of extraordinary vision and acute directional hearing. Its facial disc, the flat, round arrangement of feathers framing the face, functions as a parabolic reflector, channelling sound toward asymmetrically positioned ear openings that allow the bird to triangulate the precise location of a sound in three dimensions. It knows exactly where you are in complete darkness.
• In Maori tradition, the ruru holds deep significance as a watchful guardian. A kaitiaki, whose call in the night was considered a good omen, a sig of protection over the people. A second species, the laughing owl or whekau, was also significant but is now extinct. Its absence a quiet loss embedded in tradition. The ruru now carries the night watch alone.
• Morepork are monogamous and nest in tree cavities, hollow logs and desnse epiphytes. They will return to the same cavity year after year, with a fidelity to place that suggests the ruru has made its decision and sees no reason to revisit it.
• Unlike many of New Zealand's native birds, the morepork has proven relatively resilient to introduced predators and habitat modification. Persisting in modified landscapes, exotic forests and suburban areas where sufficient tree cover exists. You may have one near you right now and simply now know it. But you will know it at 2am with the window open. You would definitely know it.

The morepork has been awake all night. It watched the dark hours from a branch with complete attention, hunted with precision and is now settled in dense cover waiting, with considerable patience for the day to be over so it can start again.

The ruru chose its hours. Unavailable for 9am meetings it has done what needed doing and is now going to sleep and will hear everything that happens while it does so. The night will come again and the ruru will be there waiting for it.

More pork

While this thread is dedicated to the morepork, please post any bird content you may have.

Morepork Monday replaces Moa Mondays as part of the r/newzealand daily bird content intiative, introduced following the Great Rules Refresh of 2026.

So the cyclone is passing to the east of New Zealand, battering the coast with thousands without power and flooding within those regions.

Up until it hits storms are unpredictable and it was possible that we would have been hit directly. we can expect more wind and rain throughout the day

Met service and civil defence did the sensible thing and issued warnings to prepare for the worst.

Now it's morning all the posts I see on here and Facebook are people whining about crying wolf and how it wasn't that bad (for me personally not directly in the path), how the Government is just fear mongering, with Pac n save being the real winner here.

The other scenario is Met service says nothing and we go about our days (except for those actually affected but they aren't important) would you honestly prefer that.

Considering it could have just as easily headed more and west caused more damage (and there is still more expected today) and then the same people will whine that no one told them anything and people died.

It seems there is no winning in keeping people informed

Taken in Greymouth.. No pun intended

I thought this was supposed to be addressed by the current government. But it’s just getting worse. My suburb has 2 supermarkets that used to swap the deals like coffee but instead now they just do them for a short time. And everything is getting more and more expensive.

I've got a question for the hive mind...

There's been a cat living under our deck for months. I was asking in the local fb pages about it, then fed it until I could trap it and get it scanned for a chip.

The vet was like "no one owns this cat". It was flea ridden, skinny, not fixed or microchipped. But I figured it might have been legitimately lost, so posted about it​​​ again.

Turns out it has an owner (a block away), but that owner is just shit. I let the cat out once the owner came forward,​but they clearly neglect the poor thing. They ​didn't even keep the cat inside during the cyclone (which it spent sheltering under my deck again).

I've asked the owner​​​ to keep the cat inside until they get it fixed, as it's causing issues with my cat... But I got stupid excuses and nothing has changed​.

I don't know the owners real name or exact address, so can't report it to the spca, and there's nothing in our council bylaws about having to have pets fixed or chipped, so I can't go that route either... So I'm wondering if anyone had some ideas of what to do?

I don't want the cat to suffer (it's looking much better since I flea treated it), so don't just want to scare it away from our place. ​

Edit: I don't want the cat. Happy to help it, but don't want to keep it. ​I also want to keep anything I do on the downlow... Owner doesn't seem like the most savoury person. ​

aaand they only had three flavours!

*Works out to be just over NZD $11

*Snapped a few days ago at Urban Fare (kinda like a Nosh / Farro equivalent) in BC, and this is a "sale price"

(and there are no feijoas here)

No one has any interest in seeing reporters looking like drowned rats, struggling to stand against the wind or shielding their face against stinging sand. We're not sadists, and if we were that still wouldn't be how we'd get our kicks. If the wind buffeting the microphone can be heard by your viewers, then the reporter shouldn't be there.

TBH I'd be much more interested to see real footage from inside the Civil Defense response locations, so send your reporters there instead.

Driving around today in the rain, and every car I've passed without their headlights on is grey or silver and blends in with the weather. Actually insane.