But here, at last, was a bird worth flying half-way 'round the world to see. Isn't she charming? If it hadn't been raining so hard, I'd have sat down to enjoy the view with her :D As it was, I just took some shots, then tucked my camera back inside my rain jacket and slogged on, led by my ears to some intriguing bird calls. I'm afraid I didn't even search out an identifying plaque that might have shown the artist's name. Luckily, the garden has a web site about the sculptures in the park, so I was able to find out that this is "Bird Lady", made in 2012 by Jamie Pickernell. "Bird Lady" is (the web site says) "all of us, people from the Land of the Birds", so perhaps that long bill is meant to resemble that of a Kiwi ...? Although, if so, the nostrils are in the wrong place.
I should maybe have saved today's set for SF tomorrow, but I decided to stick to my chronology, which means tomorrow (time permitting) I'll start on some endemics - all of them lifers, obviously, since I'd never been to NZ before.