Trip to Mana Island

Yesterday we went on a field trip (with over night stay - woop) to Mana Island. Mana is totally rodent and pest (animal) free. Rats have never even made it there and it's a pretty special place. Best known for loads of species of reptiles, Giant Weta and the Takahe, Mana also has several sea bird species nesting on it (ie Petrels etc) and are aiming to restore the ecosystem by restoring the natural nutrient cycles which the seabirds create (ie bird shit)

To get to Mana its a half hour boat trip, we saw a seal but no pics sorry, it only looked like a log in the water anyway!

The Shore Plover's welcome you to Mana, there are only around 200 left on the planet and 17 of them live here, very cool :) This one is either a female or a youngan... the guys have red bills

Just after we arrived, a helicopter dropped off a new water tank and quad bike, and took away the old one - apparently it's destined for the institution that is Trade Me

You can't go to Mana Island without seeing, and of course taking millions of photos of, the Takahe. 20% of the worlds population now live on Mana (less one, cough cough) and they are pretty much everywhere you go. Their shit, however, IS everywhere you go!

This is a bit of a before and after shot, the new wetland looks pretty, but according to Murray he would have done it differently! (if you are interested one big lagoon would suite the teal better)
(for a reference point look for the roofs of the 2 houses to the left of the first pic)


If you want cute, there is no way you can go past the Brown Teal, they are SOOO CUTE!!!
JUST LOOK AT THEM!!!!!
Ok I'm done, but they are pretty cute... you have to admit it!
The male is slightly darker, more handsome and has the duck version of dimples (so I'm told) - white thighs. Males are SO much cooler than females, and I can say that cause it's my blog :)

Mmmm that Peanut Slab was good, thanks Sascha ;)

Yellow-crowned Parakeet's (Kakariki) loved the flaxes up on top of the island, this one struck two poses for me, very Zoolander.

Geckos shed their skins all at once, we found lots of these!

Common geckos are pretty, well, common on Mana Island! We probably saw well over 200 over the day! We even found some gecko on gecko action, although unfortunately the action Sascha and Amelia found was actually cannibalism... not so hot but equally interesting! Here is what was left once we'd scared off Hanibal:

Very Dinosaur-like pose!

Talking about Dinosaurs, the Giant Weta were pretty cool - and giant too!

This one is a female - you can see her ovipositer on her tail which she uses to lay her eggs

A few Views from the top of the island - above the South Coast of Welly, below the Marlborough Sounds
Once it was dark we went back up the hill to see the Diving Petrels. The second pic is me holding one, and in the video you can hear them calling back to us from their burrow - the male has the constant call and his fish-wife sounds a bit like Anne from Little Briton (Ehh ehh ehhhhhhh)

There was even a great sunrise this morning as our boat launched into the water, what an awesome 24 hours!

Weekend at the bach

I've just got back from a weekend away with Gav, Andy, Nev & Jason. We went up to Waitarere Beach for the weekend and stayed at a friends bach. Such a flash place! We has awesome views onto the back dunes with the sea beyond, and a great fire and lots of movies to watch too :)

Click here for a webcam of the beach!

View from bed, the sound of the sea was so good!

Gav, Andy and me. For those who are wondering, Andy is 'cute and foreign', and is also good at the tank game on Wii!

3 horses but only one hoof on the sand!

This is an old ship called the Hydrabad, it used to look like this:

Now it looks like this! After loosing sails and a hope of escape from the coast, it was foundered on the beach in 1878, no one died in the incident but the ship could never be refloated and has been slowly absorbed by the dunes ever since.
On Sunday I took the opportunity to do some sampling for my thesis. Thanks Andy and Matt for helping out :)

The cow was a bit shocked that we wanted to drive were she was standing!

It was windy but not that cold, and thankfully the waders don't leak!

If you look at the colour of the Raupo (ie it looks a bit dead!) you can see why I got a bit freaked out when I got there - the whole 5km square ish of wetland is covered in dead looking Raupo... I thought that DoC had sprayed the whole lot and killed it or something cause it looked so bad! Thankfully I am only naive, and its actually just winter die-back! (I knew that it did die back, just not that much!) Even so its looking less and less likely that I will do my thesis here now, as DoC seem to add an extra barrier to the project every time we talk to them... We'll see, fingers crossed!

After taking the samples we added ethanol to 'fix' (kill) everything I collected :)

It's called study

and I love it!
I spent 2 days at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary again this week, going over some monitoring techniques for restoration projects.

It's a hard life!

View from the Top Dam

Curves that always make me smile

I don't know what it is about Kapiti Island, but I just love looking at it!
I took this pic driving up to Uni last week, there was a car crash up the road, the traffic had piled up and we had to stop and wait, so I took the opportunity.

Feeling right at home in Petone

Even in the depths of industrial Petone, there are reminders of where I'm from!

For those that need a geography lesson, Nevis St is named after Ben Nevis, which is the highest mountain in the UK, and just down the road from where I grew up.

Lochy St is named after Loch Lochy (or maybe the River Lochy which runs out of it).

Loch Lochy is where our fish farm was, which was called Lochy Trout - the line was "Look out for Lochy Trout", how cheesy is that?! The fish farm was in Banarkaig Bay, which is also on the map, along with A which is the loch and B which is the hill:

View Larger Map

Balls are awesome

when you can make them work together ;)
This is what 714 of them look like - its 6 minutes but more than worth it!

It's a GIANT...

... earthworm!
There I was, minding my own business and doing some gardening at someones house, and I found this!

Not the best photo I know, but you get the idea! Its actually only a small one - apparently they can grow to 4' 6" north of Auckland... Not as impressive as the ones in Aussie which can get to 3m - but still pretty cool!
Thankfully I've got better photos of one that we found in Nelson Lakes a few years ago

And don't worry EJ didn't actually get round to eating it!