Sunday 5th November 2017

Our first yellow-eyed penguin chick for the season

​Hello friends and family
There is always a bit of catch up to play when one returns from holiday and so this has been a busy week. Chris and Hiltrun came up for monitoring rounds on Sunday and we have our first chicks! After they left, I picked up a message about a swarm of bees in Hampden so off I went and caught them, then took them to Olivia whom I had promised the next swarm to.

Spotted Shag chicks - two days later they were all dead - possibly the heat

​Monday was my day in the garden and on Tuesday I cleared some fallen branches in the sheep paddock that are poisonous but become palatable to the sheep as they rot. Wednesday was monitoring day and town day. I purchased some capsicum plants and now have all the vegetables that I plan to plant this spring available.

The trusty cabbage trees are sharing their glorious perfume

​Chris and Hiltrun came up on Thursday night and we did a monitoring round on Friday. We found 25 chicks! The first will be a week old today so the Diphtheria checks will begin.

Posing for the camera?

Yesterday Marian came, and we did the American Foul Brood check of all the hives. They were all OK which is just as well as any infected hives must be destroyed. There were so many bees that we both got stung – and both more than once. Marian found a hole in my hood, so I will switch to the spare one. Some hives had so many bees that I will divide them up later in the week.

The Red-billed gulls are busy nest building

Have a great week!
Rosalie
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