Sunday 9th June 2024

Heading home

​Hello friends and family
This has been a different week. Maria went home on Monday, thanks to Robbie and Barb for taking her to the airport, and the team came out on Tuesday morning. Their urgent task was to collect penguin poop for our workshop on Thursday. No supply shortage there!

We made it!

​On Wednesday, Lynn and Michel arrived for a visit after attending the Birds NZ conference in Nelson. What a wonderful opportunity for the team to have such expertise on hand for a few days. On Thursday, we were joined by Henry from the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony and Lynn demonstrated the process of making slides for Faecal analysis. The team went down the hill, collected new samples and then made slides and observed the result under the microscope.

beating the waves

​It is surprising to see such life happening in a tiny lump of poop! In The afternoon, Lynn and Michel took me to Oamaru to get the stitches out of my face. Afterwards, they visited the Oamaru Blue penguin colony to talk with Pip and see their facilities. 

Hello neighbours

​Living behind my surgery is a bit strange because I can’t see it and it feels like I am wearing glasses. I catch myself trying to take them off, to no avail! I can’t wear glasses but can fortunately see well enough without them to be able to function almost normally.

Home time

​From the other side, I look bizarre. A bridge of skin connects my forehead to my nose where the graft is slowly returning to a normal colour. There is no point in me going out in public because the surgery is such a distraction. Robbie attended the Hui on Friday, and Lynn and I worked through our new workflow sequence for next season when we will pre-empt Bird Flu by using a better routine.

Mischief wrapped in fur

​Lynn and Michel are heading home today. I was so lucky that they came at this time to keep me cheerful.
Have a great week!
Rosalie