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Hello friends and family. Visitors come to Katiki Point from all around the world and they want to see the penguins. Mostly they enjoy the natural beauty of the place, are respectful and go away pleased that they came here. Almost all of them come without any research into what they will see, maybe a look at Trip Advisor or a referral from another traveller that they have met along the way.  The chicks are growing up fast. Some of them are not pleased at all. The penguins are resting which is not very interesting – or preening which may not make for a good photo. In both cases, the response is to shout or clap to get the bird’s attention and get the action shot.  The Pohutukawa looking even more beautiful. The visitors all go as close to the wildlife as they possibly can, crowding along the fence line and leaning over, often with selfie sticks or phones to get that shot. It is my view that this is a symptom of the real problem, which is lack of control. Uncontrolled ecotourism destroys penguin colonies and this one has moved to the top of the vulnerable list.  A pair of penguins having some time out. It is the largest Yellow-eyed penguin colony on Mainland New Zealand and I have been forced to stop protecting it. I will continue to mitigate the damage to the penguins from uncontrolled ecotourism as much as I can and to provide them with the safest possible habitat. I will fail. This colony will continue to crash and soon there will be no penguins left for the tourists to see. Based on what has happened at other colonies, it will only take a couple of years.  A New Zealand Sealion with his flipper tag. Yesterday Hiltrun and I micro-chipped the rest of the chicks and brought the under-weight ones into care for treatment. We now have 12 in care. We released the 2 injured adults back into the wild. The male was very vocal on his return home – letting all of the penguins know that he was back.  A Yellow-eyed penguin watching over a group of Sooty Shearwaters The other species are fledging chicks except for the Sooty Shearwaters. They are well into the process and there are still a lot of them coming home each night. Their chicks usually fledge in the autumn.
Have a great week! Rosalie Sunday 17th January 2016 Hello friends and family. Tuesday was a big day and Hiltrun came up on Monday night for an early start. We had 12 more chicks that had reached 70 days old to micro-chip. Thank goodness, they were all over the 5 Kg mark which is the cut-off point for rehab at this age. The chicks here weighed an average of 5.4 Kg and the ones at Okahau Pt weighed an average of 5.3 Kg.  Chick ready to micro-chip After we had finished, we had Kathryn, the vet come to take swabs from our two chicks. We don’t know why they are underweight, so she took bacterial and fungal swabs so we can find out and select the best treatment for them. In the meantime, they are angelic – eating 4 salmon, twice a day and causing no problems at all.  Both parents of our hospital chicks are OK Tuesday brought even more gifts – rain! We got 11mm of rain over night and I expected this to result in a quiet day at the Top tip shop on Wednesday morning, but it seems that cleanouts were the order of the day and we got lots of new stuff in and not a lot of sales.  Growing up fast! On Thursday I went to Oamaru and admired the harvested fields of grain along the way. In the afternoon I checked all of the bees except the Lighthouse Hills apiary and they were fine – one even stung me on the cheek so once again, I look a bit peculiar!  Pohutukawa in bloom in the colony Yesterday was the day for the big round up of chicks to micro-chip. Chris and Hiltrun came up on Friday night, Elaine came out to help and Nola was there to see what needed to be done.  Bees drinking from the penguin swimming pool. We put microchips into 27 chicks and 5 were under-weight and needed to come into hospital. The average weight here was 5.4Kg and at Okahau Point, 4.9Kg – all together- 5.2Kg At Okahau Point we came across a crèche of 6 chicks plus one injured adult which required a bit of planning to get everyone sorted out with minimum stress all round. What a skilled team we have!  Pretty flowers in the garden. This is an OK season for penguins.
Have a great week! Rosalie Hello friends and family. Every season is unique and this summer is no different. We have the big dry. The lawns have burnt off and when I cut the hedge last week, there was no need to pick up the cuttings because the rabbits ate them. That was great, but rabbit damage is challenging in the reserves where they ring-bark mature trees and in this weather they are a constant challenge.  On top of their world! The penguin chicks continue to thrive, some losing their down and some have white tummies showing through. It seems that losing baby fluff is an itchy process because they almost obsess with preening and often have fluff stuck to their beaks. Mum and dad preen them too, and it is a treat to see a family caring for each other.  Nearly ready to fly...... Half of the reason for the big dry is the wind. It blows in fresh off the sea from the northeast and keeps the temperatures in the teens until dusk when it warms up to 20o C which is nice outside but hot inside.  Yes, we believe we can fly - newly fledged shags Having the bees here has helped produce a bumper crop of cherries and the plums are beginning to ripen. The bunnies have destroyed my carrot crop so I will re-sow seeds next week. The Mulberry tree is laden with fruit so I have put bird netting on it and will water it until the fruit matures. I am re-cycling bathroom and laundry water to keep the garden going.  And me too! The point is covered in speckled juvenile gulls. As the chicks reach 70 days old, we catch them, weigh them and insert a microchip behind their head which will mean that we can track them if they return to a colony for the rest of their lives without any maintenance required.  The photo that we don't want to see. We were very surprised yesterday to find that the oldest 2 chicks were under weight and so they have been brought into care. We don’t know why they are skinny and not the most well developed chicks but treating the problem is the most important thing that we can do.  An expert stalker. They will be fed on salmon smolt, subsidized by New Zealand King Salmon until they weigh 6Kg + and then they will be able to go to sea at the correct age, not sit on shore, waiting until they catch up.
The silly season has begun. Have a great week! Rosalie Hello friends and family. HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Happy New Year May 2016 be a great year for you and for the yellow-eyed penguins too! I am pleased to see the end of 2015 and have resolved to do better with recycling and using my bike for more trips this year.  Handsome baby The week has been one of hedge cutting and general trimming around the place. The days have been hot except for Wednesday, and the lawn is burnt off. The cherries are ripening and I pick some each day to keep on top of them, but the bulk will reach perfection this week.  Adventurous baby I am continuing to monitor the chicks every 3 days. Mostly they are post-guard now – both parents are out fishing and the chicks are sleeping. Their juvenile plumage is starting to grow with blue feathers sticking out of their tails. They are mobile and can run about confidently.  Southern Rata flowering in the garden We decided to count the visitors on New Year’s day because we knew that we had over 1000 last year and we wanted a comparison. I put a trail camera out the night before, and decided to not go out to the car park to ask people to leave as they arrived, but rather to see if they would go into the reserve after 8pm, knowing that there are 5 signs telling them that the reserve closes at 7:30pm that they have to ignore. 15 people came into the reserve and stayed on average ½ hour, the last of them leaving after 10pm. The first visitors for the new year entered the reserve at 6am.  sleeping! It ended up that the camera was not up to the task – not focussing through the fence so we are none the wiser!
Have a great week Rosalie |
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