There's a pet magpie in her bedroom, turtles in the pond out back and a camera never far from her hand.
Wanganui's Lynne Douglas is interested in insects, sea life, birds and plants, shells, photography, music, local history and flying.
The Castlecliff section she shares with partner Eric Parker is overflowing with collected and chance life-forms.
"We have got a nice tree-lined section, because I used to bring little tree seedlings home when I was on my bug-hunting jaunts," she said.
Pet magpie Tweet keeps a baleful eye on what goes on in the back garden.
"He gets stroppy but he doesn't attack us as he does with strangers."
He is the third magpie the two have hosted. Tweet fell out of a nest in Carlton Ave as a baby. He doesn't talk but can wolf whistle and mimic cellphones.
A turtle in a small pond behind the house is a red-eared terrapin Mrs Douglas noticed when she was taking photographs at the Whanganui estuary. She thought it was a bird at first, flapping in the mud. Its friend is a gift from someone who had kept it as a pet.
There is another pond with goldfish, a vegetable garden, an assortment of plants, a vast collection of driftwood leaning against the house, two cats and a bumblebee nest on the small property.
Lynne lived in Castlecliff until she was 14. Her father was a fisherman with his own launch.
"I grew up in that time when the fishing boats came in and sold the fish over the wharf. We were part of the fishing boat people and the wharf."
Interested in the natural world from an early age, she used to take katipo spiders to school in a box. Around the age of 13, she stopped being a good student and started to play up - "because, really, I just sort of wanted to do my own thing".
After school she got a job in an office, moving back to Castlecliff in 1963.
She got interested in photography because she was learning to fly and wanted to picture what she could see from the air. These days a head injury has stopped her flying but she still takes a lot of photographs.
It is a hobby, not a job, and she has no obligations. She often contributes to the Chronicle.
She is always on the alert for new insects. One of her past hobbies was to set them in resin.
In Wanganui, Colin Ogle, Peter Frost, Ormond Torr and Paul Gibson can help her with identification. She has also been known to call on Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and Landcare Research experts, and to supply them with photos.
From a musical family, she picks out tunes by ear on the accordion and piano.
For the past few years she has also been taking lessons and learning to read music.
These days, at 73, she still works part-time as a caregiver. But since injuring her back, she cannot walk as far or fast.
"It has severely cut back my ability to walk long distances or run up the sandhills, and even sometimes get into awkward places to photograph fungi.
"I suppose I should really be grateful for what I still can do," she said.