With Compliments

A Blue Orpington rooster with soft, even slate-blue plumage in a navy wool fisherman's smock, perched on the wooden rail of a weatherboard beach hut's porch on a windswept New Zealand coast, a plain white envelope held down by a smooth pebble on the rail beside him, flax bending in the wind and a grey-green sea with whitecaps under a bright cloudy sky

Posted East

A small black bird on a very small island has won the country's vote. He was not eligible and did not campaign, and sent a card to the Chathams that reads, in full, 'Well flown.'

21 September 2026