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Hello friends and family This has been a difficult week. The diphtheria has spread to many nests and some chicks have died in spite of me treating them. These chicks have had empty stomachs so starvation has been part of the problem, for whatever reason.  Our only nest not in a nestbox - both chicks disappeared. Some chicks are thriving, but 6 chicks have disappeared, making us think that they have been predated so it has got back to the point where it is difficult to look into a nestbox because we don’t know what we will find. Hiltrun and I are still doing full monitoring rounds every second day. It is much easier with 2 of us as the decisions that we make are life and death decisions for the penguin chicks.  A juvenile penguin in the colony. I put a trail camera on a nest that had lost one chick and got photos of a rat entering the nestbox. This could be the predator but I will keep checking in case other predators appear. All the traps are set.  A rat visiting a nestbox where a chick disappeared. On Monday DOC issued a press release about the decline in penguin numbers over the last few years. As it was caught between the Paris bombs and Jonah Lomu’s death, it hardly got a mention. Kristina from Christchurch got in touch and told me that the Bank’s Peninsula Yellow-eyed penguin nest numbers had halved from 6 to 3 so it appears the decline is right across their whole NZ range.  Survivors! On Friday, Hiltrun and I had a clear round. This means no chicks dead, no chicks missing and no new sick chicks. This was a first for 2 weeks. Let’s hope the worst is over.  Today we will check all the nests again, fingers crossed for another clear round!
Have a great week Rosalie Hello friends and family  Our first chicks have finished their treatment Last Sunday, Kathryn, the vet came and did the monitoring rounds with me. We found Diphtheria in this colony and so I began treating the chicks here. It was wet and so very slippery.  Little penguins coming home. By the time Hiltrun and I had done the monitoring rounds on Tuesday, I had 7 nests to treat. This involves extracting the chicks from under their parent and dosing them with antibiotics and then getting them back in without either them or me being eaten by the stroppy parent. It is not pretty, but it does save lives.  my new neighbours Wednesday was my day at the Top-Tip shop and I made it there by 9:15 am, having got up at 6:30 am, dosed the chicks, and replaced the SD cards in the trail cameras. I came home for lunch and set the week’s batch of cheese growing (?) before heading into town to do the shopping. Needless to say, I forgot half of what I went there for, but from now until chick treatment is finished, I will write it down.  Yesterday Hiltrun and I did the monitoring rounds and found 2 more nests with Diphtheria but no dead chicks. The disease is not affecting every chick and the early ones have completed their 5 days so the task remains manageable. Linda from Moeraki gave me her husband’s old fishing gloves and they are just perfect for wrist protection and so making the job easier.  The Little penguins are laying eggs – it seems very late, but it is great to see them coming home at last.
Have a great week! Rosalie. Hello friends and family. Eric and Barbara came and stayed on Sunday night which was a real treat and the weather was so nice on Monday that I checked on the bees. One of the swarms liked its new home and has stayed there, the other flew away.  Bees in the Cabbage Trees for the first time here. Because of the Diphtheria, we have upped our monitoring rounds to every second day for the next few weeks. This has been another busy week and it takes a bit of keeping up with it all. On Tuesday afternoon I got a call from Walter, our Penguin Rescue Chairman to let me know that he and his wife would be coming to the meeting at the Marae on Friday. I was on the way to a Melbourne Cup party in Oamaru which was very pleasant.  Our first penguin family of the season Emma, an honours student arrived at 7:15am on Wednesday to begin her research on visitor interactions with penguins. Chris and Hiltrun came up on Wednesday and we checked the nests. I started the second chick in nest 107 on antibiotics on Thursday morning as it had diphtheria as well.  First sick chick putting on weight On Thursday we got advice of a meeting at DOC offices in Dunedin on Friday, but we could not attend it as we already had a meeting here. Yellow-eyed penguins have experienced a severe decline in population, measured by active nest numbers in the last 6 years. The drop has been over half and the situation is serious. The Dunedin meeting was called to look at possible strategies to reduce the rate of decline in the population.  Is it a shark, is it a whale? no it is a log! Our meeting at the Marae was, in part, to explore ways to better protect the penguins here. The impact of all the visitors last season has been well documented in our last annual report, and trying to minimise this is even more important than before. We care for 96% of North Otago’s penguin population, even though our numbers have dropped. They are too precious to be expended as free tourist entertainment.
Have a great week! Rosalie Hello friends and family. What a week! We have had great news – 2 more nests – one here and one at Okahau Point. This brings us to 46.  Nest tucked into the base of a cliff. We have our first chicks. They are early which is a good thing. All of the eggs have been candled and all of the breeding birds microchipped. There are a lot of single males hanging about, most of whom are also microchipped and so we are able to get a good picture of the changes in breeding patterns within the two colonies.  First chick When we checked these chicks yesterday the first one had Diphtheria lesions in its mouth but looks otherwise OK. We removed the lesions and I will treat it for the next 5 days.  Still waiting, but not wanting to miss the first arrival. We now have 8 trail cameras to monitor the burrowing sea birds and are hoping for some good evidence of who is breeding here this spring. The Black backed gulls have eggs and the Spotted shags have chicks.  Nest building The Red-billed gulls are still thinking about it!  3 Fast growing hungry babies. We have enjoyed some glorious weather and a decent cold snap. The farm next door has had the first crop of grass harvested and the machinery employed is very impressive. They worked until after dark to collect the grass.  busy workers. November is always a busy month at the lighthouse. I am even getting out of bed early. We had 28.5 mm of rain in October.
Have a great week! Rosalie |
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