Sunday 25th October 2015.

Hello friends and family
What a relief to find all penguins sitting nicely on their eggs when we did a monitoring round on Tuesday. We have had some spring like weather – sunshine and wind. When I mowed the drive on Thursday, the lawn is burning off so I will probably not need to mow it again until the autumn.

heading home to incubate

We have started the process of candling the penguin eggs and so far fertility appears to be high which creates a problem for the 3 eggs that we have saved when their mothers abandoned the nests. I am sure that we will find a good home for them. In the meantime, an egg has disappeared from a nest site visible to the public, the same nesting pair that was robbed last year.

Incubating. Note how clean the egg is - a result of very dry weather

Today marks the beginning of the New Zealand tourist season. In spite of promises of action, nothing has been done by those legally responsible for Yellow-eyed penguins to protect them from another year of 50,000+ uncontrolled visitors who come from all around the world. The disgusting “long drop” toilet, designed for a few trampers in the bush remains unchanged, with no hand sanitiser and so smelly that many people come onto my place and use the back of the hedge as a toilet. 

Spoonbills spooning

Yesterday Marian came and together we visited all the bees. Marian inspects every part of the hide for an incurable disease called American Foul Brood. We found a swarm and were able to get it into a bee hive. Marian showed me how the bees advertise their new home to the rest of the swarm and I saw them marching into the hive. Awesome! 

Our second new helper at Okahau point - job - motivator.

I have now planted my potatoes and carrots. I gave up on my crop rotation for the carrots and put them in where they did so well last season. The potatoes have been moved and I will shift the courgettes and pumpkins too.

Our first new helper at Okahau point

Have a great week
Rosalie