It’s last light, golden fragments flung from scattered clouds in an icey blue sky painting the tallest reaches of a struggling karo tree that sits outside my fence. The air was spring-warm earlier and I basked in it, but the warmth is going with the light. I’m on the couch, staring out at the not-inconsiderable amount of traffic on the road. It’s not a normal rush-hour, but there are still plenty of people roaring along the tarmac. Auckland has returned to a Level 3 lockdown as of midday, a stay-home order canning all of my plans for island work for the next while. This evening I should have been wandering Motuihe in search of petrels and penguins, but I won’t get caught up in what-ifs. There’s too much to be grateful for – decisive leadership that has seen us squash Covid once, and will see us through it again. 

In a rush, a whoosh and a volley of wild song, two tūī whirl into the karo. They appear from nowhere, trilling and screeching, to sip nectar from the first tentative flowers of the season. Karo flowers are a beautiful velvety wine colour, soft bells with curled tips. The pale mint-green suede of new leaves is flourishing as well, after a long dry summer that saw a few branches brown and die altogether. The tūī bound from branch to branch, scaling the tree from shade to sun, delicately dipping their beaks into the tiny flowers. Their feathers catch the fading glow, transforming them from silhouette to iridescent fire. The light leaves, and the birds go, lost in that notched-primary rush of feathers on the evening air. 

Last week I wandered Motu Muka – Lady Alice island – by day and by night. Haekaro, a relative of this karo, were blooming with such abundance, such abandon, that to walk past a tree was to be walloped with their heady scent, a bright warm floral with a sharp cider tang. It was nearly intoxicating. In the dark my headlamp would find profuse bunches of their silky blush flowers – so similar in shape – bright like pearls in the dark. By day the trees were full of nectar feeders, little korimako and brusque tūī, even hopping tīeke taking little sips from the mad bloom. Next to a busy roadside in Auckland, this karo is quieter and more subdued, just beginning to send out buds and visited only sporadically by roaming tūī. But in the last blazing light of day it’s just as beautiful, and even more precious for being surrounded by so much grey urbanity. 

I am thankful for both experiences, for the week in the wilds, and now for this small connection to it as I prepare to change all my plans once more, to adapt and do what I can. We have so much to be thankful for, here in Aotearoa. I’m as susceptible to doom-scrolling and catastrophising as anyone, especially on my own. But it’s these little breaths that keep my head clear and my eyes looking outwards and forwards.