A lovely evening to sit between the rocks just underneath our logger bird’s colony waiting for it to return. Today was the second day the penguin had been out with its i-gotU backpack. And it is time to relieve it for its load. We got to the site in the late afternoon and decided to...
Well, that was a bit pointless. We went in today to do the camera round. The idea was to replace batteries where needed and change SD cards so that we could retrieve recorded footage and time lapse images from all 17 cameras out operating at the moment. Good idea in theory. But not so good...
Given that we have only one device left, there was no time to waste. We wrapped the i-gotU up in cellophane, stuck in a couple of condoms and sealed it up with Tesa-tape. By now the procedure is more of a routine than it is the weirdest thing I’ve done for science so far. Sure,...
In truly appalling weather Popi and I managed to recover our first GPS logger carrying tawaki this afternoon. And despite all my concerns about difficulties of recovering penguins in the rugged terrain of Jackson Head it went extremely smoothly (well, smoothly as it can go while it is bucketing down cattle and sheep). It went...
After another comfy night and a solid breakfast at the Heartland Hotel in Haast, we climbed into our field gear. The weather looked rather dull and grey. Today was definitely an oil skin day. The drive from Haast to Jackson Head seems to get longer every time. 48 Kilometres of one of the straightest but...
This was a long day today. I got up just after 6am, jumped into my truck and headed across into the Alps. I had to get to Queenstown airport by 11am to pick up Popi Garcia-Borboroglu who flew in today from Argentina. When I reached the airport I found and email from Popi, telling me...
Another cracker of a day on the West Coast. Have I ever experienced cloudless skies on the West Coast? Probably, but somehow I mainly remember the rain. Seems like this about to change as the forecasters on tele (an impressive TV set adorns one of the walls in my hotel room) only stick suns onto...
So… here we are. On the West Coast. After a solid 5 hours drive I pulled over at the Haast Visitor centre to have a quick chat to Jac Amey from DOC. It turned out to be a nice and relaxed one-and-a-half hour cuppa and catch-up that was quite welcome. One bit of important news...
Just returned from a two day trip out to Haast and Jackson Head where I had a look at how things are progressing with the Fiordland penguins. The breeding population has yet to be surveyed by DOC which will happen sometime next week. As of yet we have no clear idea where the nests are...
