Sunday 3rd January 2016

Hello friends and family.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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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

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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