WHATCHA DOING MISTER?

 Yesterday I cleaned out a rainwater drain that runs underneath the driveway to the road. As I've mentioned I will need to get a drain layer in to  dig and install a French drain to carry away the seepage from the farmland at the back that runs under the house when we have big rainstorms.

Looking at where the trench has to go and how to pipe the water away I checked out a small drain that we have at the right side of the drive.

I ran a hose into the drain to check out that water was flowing through it and looked in the large sump at the bottom of the drive where I assumed that this drain ran to.

Nothing, no water was flowing into it. Intrigued I looked around and discovered this little outlet that I've never noticed before.

It is at the bottom of our property, right on the boundary with the neighbour's property and discharges into the road gutter. Nothing was coming out there either.

I took the hose and fed it up this drain outlet, about 20 feet before it stopped by a blockage. I kept jiggling the hose until sludge, snails and debris came out but, after an initial splurge it was dry again.

I went back up the drive to the receiving end of the drain and fed the hose down about 40 feet until it met a blockage. I jiggled and jiggled and wriggled and cursed for ages until eventually the water that had been pooling and soaking me ran free and the blockage was cleared. The drain is working and it is the one that runs to the roadside gutter. I can now indicate this to the drain layer if and when he ever bothers to come around.

But ... this isn't what this post is about - sorry for getting you all excited.

The post is about my little visitors when I was clearing out the drain.

The first visitors were a pair of red-billed gulls who spied me down by the road and came to investigate. Normally the gulls keep a distance as I used to shoo them away from the deck - see: HERE but these two came up quite close, cocking their heads to get a good look at me inserting the hose and pulling out the rubbish. I guess that they were hoping I'd dislodge some edibles for them.

The second lot were a couple of starlings who hopped about, coming up real close to me, once again intrigued by what I was doing. They stayed for quite a while and only gave up when they saw the sludge was just sludge. They'd gone by the time I dislodged fat and juicy snails. Maybe they came back later and got them.

Lastly, when I was at the top of the drive, finally clearing the drain a family of sparrows flitted back and forth. They chattered excitedly while approaching and retreating but were ever alert to what I was doing. They too eventually gave up and flew away but it was nice to have their company for a while.

This reminded me that I'd been intending to install another bird feeder or some safe watering point for our feathered friends here. Apart from the annoying red-bills and the sparrows and starlings there's John the black-backed gull and his family who for years has lived on the shore in front of our house, tui, keruru, ruru, kiwi, korimako. piwakawaka, kingfishers, Californian quail, doves, kokako, gannets, oystercatchers, heron and many others including the reintroduced kaka and black robin. It's a real pleasure to listen to them and watch them feeding bringing up their off-spring.