Monarchs and Mandarins

I am so excited!! I have found them!! 

Well I have found a jolly good sized family of them.

  My monarch friends.

They are overwintering just down the road.

I think that they must have got a little befuddled in the 

cold as they are usually found hanging in sequoia trees

but this wee family have moved a few doors down & are

happily occupying a totara tree.

 I needed to take a walk to retrieve my car from my kind 

mechanic Steve as he had finished doing the warrant on it.

It was getting on in the afternoon when I set off

 I got to Frederick Street & the garden with sequoias & other huge trees

then just along a little bit & there they were

They just hang there for weeks & weeks in "bunches".

On sunny days they take it in turns, a few at a time to 

come to life,

have a little fly around & then back to the "position"

passersby probably thought I was a bit nutty taking

photos of a tree : )

...then through the secret pathway

and look what I found..

this dear little playhouse in a carport

back home it was time for more weighing of mandarins

whatever would we do without these fabulous old scales?

they must have weighed 1000's of kilos of fruit just for us

let alone whatever they did in their previous employment

in the Coromandel...

righteo off to sell some more fruit..