Why was our Blog taken offline?

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Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

We thought it important to advise that Midnight Collective was taken offline by Google yesterday. We’re not sure of the exact time because we don’t keep a close eye on ourselves, but we were alerted by email around 3pm (Tuesday NZ time) by a supporter who was having trouble accessing it. From the stats we could have been out for up to 15 hours.

We then entered the kind of space inhabited by the ‘Revenge of the Nerds’. We are not tech-savvy, and still rely on good old dial up at 5kbs (that’s right 5kbs). Google keep advising us that they have detected that we are ‘slow down loaders’ (do they mean slow learners?) but we are patient  and not fussed by the implied disapproval.

However, we were concerned to find (2 hours later!) that the blog had been shut down because of suspicious activity. This couldn’t have been by us, though it was an automated response, so we have been left none the wiser about exactly what happened. Was it a technical glitch or something more sinister?

We finally managed to get an email through to Google, who re-connected the site within ten minutes and have been on the ball since, without however, explaining what was going on.  The whole affair has put us on our guard, with our confidence in blogspot being somewhat dented.  If you have had trouble getting through to this blog, or have better experience than we have in using blogspot and can advise us, then we would appreciate hearing from you at contact us (gmail wasn’t affected).

In the meantime here’s a couple of surprises, that were waiting for us at the Wharemauku when we arrived back from Nelson...emphasizing again, how rich this small area is in wetland bird life. 

Kotare - NZ Kingfisher

Little Shag -Kawaupaka

The shag was coming in on a rising tide, which is why the water is so murky, though this  didn't worry the shag.  
Jill Studd's Blog

Track we've been listening to while posting this 

Empty Bed Blues 
This is a Bessie Smith song but its the Josh White version 
we've got on...

When you get good lovin',
don't you, don't you spread the news.
Because those gals will doublecross you and leave you,
with the empty bed blues!