​Hello friends and family
The silly season is upon us – 3 social gatherings this week plus the Top tip – I feel like a gad about!

​On Monday I visited the Hampden section for the first time in months. It was very wet under foot and some tree Lucerne had fallen over so I will need to go back and tie them up. Tuesday was my town day and I was able to have lunch with Raewyn and Jenny – what a treat. They are both well and enjoying life. 

​Top tip on Wednesday morning and after lunch I had an interview with a TV reporter for Q & A that will screen on Sunday night (tonight). It was about tourist impact. Eric and Barbara arrived after that and it was great to catch up with them and all their news. In the meantime, Jan and Trish had done the monitoring round and found one dead chick and 4 starving ones in two nests. I brought the 2 smallest chicks in each nest into care. This is mostly to relieve the stress on the mothers – one of whom had been injured and one who is only 2 years old. She is the only 2-year-old that was attempting to raise 2 chicks. Feeding at the nest is fine for the chick but stressful for the family.

​On Thursday, Eric and Barbara were on their way back to Christchurch and I attended the Moeraki ladies Christmas gathering at the Tavern. Jan came out on Friday and we found two chicks with large bald patches on their lower backs. It was something that we had not seen before and so yesterday we brought them into care – here they are protected from mosquitoes so it reduces their chance of getting Malaria. 

Today I am off for a barbeque and tomorrow I go to Dunedin to receive a Kiwi Bank local hero award.
Busy times!
Have a great week!
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family
It is always good to get past nasty November. We now have 54 healthy chicks with a good chance of surviving to fledge. We will be weighing, micro-chipping and screening them for malaria in 3 weeks’ time. The weather has remained unsettled, very windy and damp.

​I went to town on Monday and take the opportunity to check out other people’s bee hives – most still have only one super on them for collecting honey. Robbie and I did the rounds on Tuesday and we found one of our breeding females in the gay guy’s house. She was back there on Thursday.

​Wednesday was the day for our Hui with TRONT, TROM and DOC. The site visit was made special by a penguin coming home while we were there.  There are also lots of Red-billed Gull chicks which are very cute. Robbie and Joe did the rounds with me on Thursday and we found an undersized chick at home alone. We will keep a watchful eye on this chick as its mother is only 2 and dad hasn’t bred in years.

​I did some weed-eating on Friday and eyed up the lawn but decided it would pass muster without a mow – by Saturday it was a jungle!
Hiltrun and I did the rounds on Saturday. The Thursday chick had put on 300 g so is Okay for now. We did find a chick that was only 2/3 of the size of its sibling. We compare chick size all the time and this was new. I will be supplementary feeding this chick at the nest for the next week and see if it will catch up.

We had some of our local supporters visit on Saturday afternoon (hence the concern about the lawn). It was great to hear their caring and encouragement. It was also a chance to discuss strategy around how we can save this species.
Have a great week!
Rosalie
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​Hello friends and family
And so, November continues to be frenetic, and the weather has joined the party! Heavy rain and high winds test our fortitude, but we just dress for it and get on with the jobs at hand. The house is like a Chinese laundry but smells worse!

​On Sunday we checked the chick at the south end of the Moeraki colony and it had fallen out of its nest. We returned it to the nest box and within ½ hour we had a hail storm – lucky chick. On Monday we rescued an adult with an eye injury and had to wait in the truck for the hail to stop. He is known to us as drain bird as he chose to live in a drain below SH 1 until we eventually relocated him to a safer place.

​On Wednesday we found a mum that was injured. She was still at home on Thursday, so we were able to put iodine on her wound and weigh the chicks. The risk is that they will starve while she recovers, and the sea is so rough, dad may not be able to cope with the food demand of the family on his own. 

​On Thursday we also found another dead chick and its sibling, still alive, had maggots in its mouth and died by Friday. Yuck. The good news for Thursday is that we now have our first seal pup of the season. On Thursday night someone broke into the money box again. This time they came out with bolt cutters and removed the brass padlock. I hope the wet weather visitors this week were mean.

Chris and Hiltrun came up on Friday and Hiltrun and I did the rounds together on Saturday.
We have had 4 more dead chicks – two from inexperienced parents and two from a nest where the parents always seem to struggle to raise their chicks. We now have 54 chicks, and our fingers are crossed for them all.
Have a great week!
Rosalie
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​Hello friends and family
Life is so busy at present! On Sunday we had Sniper the Yellow-eyed penguin detector dog up to search beaches for us. It was a magical day and we found all the penguins that we knew to be there so that was wonderful. 

​On Monday we did the monitoring rounds and sorted out some of our new calendars to put with other people to sell. I spent the afternoon preparing for the scheduled power outage on Tuesday that was then deferred to Thursday. On Tuesday Robbie arrived with a small hothouse which he delivered, set up and installed. Thank you, Robbie!

​On Thursday we found more sick chicks and 2 more dead ones. Sad. Thank goodness the rest are still alive! On Friday we reached peak treatment with 29 individual chicks needing antibiotics. For 14 0f them it was their last dose, so we are over the hump. Chicks in the last nest started pipping too, which is wonderful.

Saturday was a busy one too! In the morning Hiltrun and I did the rounds and found another 6 sick chicks. This brings the proportion of treated chicks up to 72% so it is as bad as last season. Our productivity is now at 1.4 – it needs to stay over 1.1 for the penguins to be replacing themselves. In the afternoon, Marian and I did the AFB check for the bees. She got stung 3 times and me twice – it was a bit cold and the bees were grumpy. Thank goodness and Marian that it is done for the season.
The media has been interesting this week too. The ODT reported the YEPT as finding the rate of population decrease is slowing which is of little consolation to us as diphtheria is rampant again and little is being done to treat it. TVNZ 1 reported that the penguins will be extinct on mainland NZ in 10 -20 years as the numbers continue to plummet. We can only hope that more awareness brings more resources.
Have a great week!
Rosalie
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​Hello friends and family
The tiny babies down the hill are now my focus and on Tuesday we found a dead one. We also found 3 sick ones, so they were started on anti-biotics. This was also the day that we had a visit from 2 DOC officers from the permits department and it was such a shame that they did not have enough time to prepare for the meeting and then see the work that we are doing. They are over worked!

​Wednesday was my day at the Top-tip shop and once again, I caught up with a lot of the locals who are busy getting on with life. On Thursday the rain arrived. Jan and Robbie joined me for the monitoring rounds and we found another dead chick. It was 2 days old. As Robbie was heading to Dunedin he was able to take it to DOC for autopsy at Massey university. It was diagnosed as having Diphtheria. We also came across 3 more sick ones.
By the end of the day we had 58 chicks and 8 eggs yet to hatch.

​It continued to rain on Friday, so I put the laundry out in the hospital as it now has a roof!
We ended up with 40 mm of rain which is a lot for us, and it was quite cold with snow on the mountains.

It was too cold to do the bees on Saturday, but we did the rounds and found more sick chicks but no more dead ones!
Have a great week!
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family.
Happy birthday Hamish! I hope your exams are going well and you have your summer accommodation sorted! 

​After helping plant trees at the Waianakarua river mouth on Sunday morning I had a quiet afternoon pottering about and enjoying the day. Monday was a busy one! Julia and Megan came up from Penguin Place and did the monitoring rounds with us. Stewart, Robbie and Jan were here and our focus for the day was making a positive start to the season and sharing best practice. They brought up some boxes of fish and Wayne arrived with 20 more – the freezer is full! I even had to turn on the chest freezer for a day to be able to sort the old fish to the front and the new stuff in the back of the walk-in freezer. What a great way to start the season, with plenty of fish.

​At the end of the round we had 15 chicks. The weather was miserable on Tuesday, so I went to town and got more wire and posts. Jan came out on Wednesday and we did the monitoring rounds. We found 24 beautiful chicks, and sadly, a dead one. Its sibling was very sick and scored a 4 on our new Diphtheria diagnostic sheet so we are treating it with antibiotics.

​Jan, Robbie and I were joined by Vikki on Thursday and we managed to plant the last of this season’s bulk plantings – 36 Tussocks. We were not as lucky with removing the sheep from Seal Point – 3 attempts and only ½ of them out. We no longer own the sheep – they have been taken over by Ross the farmer to ensure that they get the best possible care.

Jan and I checked the chicks on Friday and all was well – the same again on Saturday with Hiltrun which is awesome.
Have a great week!
Rosalie
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​Hello friends and family
We have our first chicks! On our monitoring rounds on Thursday we found 2 nests with pipping eggs. By yesterday we had 6 chicks and 4 more pips.
The warm weather continued through until Thursday, made interesting here by some very thick and swirling fog that arrived on Monday night and left on Thursday as the cold heavy rain arrived.

​Elaine came out on Monday to help with the monitoring round and all the penguins were very settled. On Tuesday, Robbie, Jan and I went to the Catlins. I had asked for photos of the new penguin fence at the Curioscape centre in Curio Bay and as none were forthcoming, we went down to take our own. The trip was truly AWESOME! We traveled in Barb’s BMW, being the most efficient vehicle available and had the roof back for most of the trip as it was very warm. 

​I have not been to the Catlins before in glorious weather and I think every spring bloom was at its best and giving off delicious perfume. We then went to Long Point to observe the habitat available to the penguins there and saw some NZ Sealions. The last stop in the Catlins was the Lighthouse at the Nuggets and the penguin hide there.

​The penguins have a vast, unspoiled coastline available to them down there in the Catlins and it is hard to understand why they are not flourishing. We still have the largest and second largest mainland colonies here in North Otago. Some of the signage was impressive, ignored by fellow travelers but well thought out and with simple messages.

​On Wednesday I went to share an update with the practice manager at Oamaru Vets and they are willing to continue their excellent support of our work. We have been working together for many years and they have a practical respect for our work and a love of penguins. Thursday was our next monitoring round and then Chris and Adrian arrived early on Friday to battle the boxthorns.

Yesterday after the monitoring rounds I upgraded the protection around 7 Taupheta trees. The wind and the sheep are very hard on the commercial tree protectors and we need to upgrade them sooner rather than later!
Have a great week!
Rosalie
​

​Hello friends and family
The weather was much better this week as we worked our way through the never-ending list of jobs. Planting will come to a halt as the ground hardens off. The next phase is weed control and we will spot spray the thistles which can best be described as lush.

​On Tuesday, Chris and Adrian came up to join Jan, Robbie and I. Jim our DOC penguin liaison person came up for the day too, so he could get an update of the work that we are doing. Fresh eyes are always a good thing and he found mosquito wrigglers in the salt pond that I had not even considered as possible habitat. It was treated on Wednesday!

​Robbie brought his neighbours out on Thursday and they were very interested in helping with our work, which is wonderful as there is plenty to be done. More progress was made on the pens and the weather was glorious.

​Yesterday we candled the eggs. We have a special box to do this, which we bring out once a year and the whole process was smooth and a cause for great pride. The penguins behaved perfectly. and we have a very high level of fertility this season. Candling enables us to transfer any eggs that are at risk before they hatch, to maximise survival. This is one of the reasons why we monitor – to habituate the penguins to our care so they don’t stress too much when we need their co-operation.
We never forget that they are wild!

Have a great week!
Rosalie
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