Sunday 31st July 2022

winter penguin views - footprints

​Hello friends and family
Wet, wet, wet! I planted some trees on Monday and that was it until Thursday when the rain stopped. We got 40 mm over Tuesday and Wednesday and amazingly, there is very little damage. The sea is brown with the flood waters. State highway 1 was flooded both north and south and other than a few trips to plant seedlings in the hothouse, I stayed inside all the time.

finding a dry spot

​I did the rounds on Thursday morning to make sure that all was well and then went to Oamaru on Friday. The trip was even more spectacular with lake reflections of the snowy mountains and even swans in some of the flood waters.

Elaine has begun her training in the microbiology lab

​Saturday was the annual, Yellow-eyed Penguin symposium. Seven of us headed down to Dunedin on icy roads and spent a day hearing the annual update of the season. Attendance was down with about 80% of the usual attendees and there was one, very good student research project presented which was about communication with dog owners. 

this pair look very pleased with their site selection

​I presented our annual report, but DOC and the Yellow-eyed penguin Trust presented all the data accumulated into one presentation, including ours. There was a separate report for Rakiura.

winter colour

I also presented our Malaria update, and both my talks were scheduled together which gave me more time. Janelle gave a presentation which identified a Rotavirus in association with the unexplained chick deaths. As always it was great to catch up with the other front line penguin workers.
Other than the Charities report, we can now put last season to rest and focus on the new one.
Have a great week!
Rosalie