Life on the island has been pretty exciting the last couple of months. For those of you who aren’t following the official San Diego Zoo blog at this link: http://blogs.sandiegozoo.org/author/steph-walden/, you may not know that kiwi are crazy birds! My supervisor Sarah seems to think we’ll finish this research to become more confused and mystified by kiwi than when we started! They apparently started breeding 1.5 months earlier than last year, also giving us more nests by far. We were pretty psyched about all of the excitement for chicks… but then the mess set in. Multiple males have abandoned their nests, and some chicks haven’t survived. Luckily we had some successful hatches in late September!
I’ve enjoyed watching the seasons on the farm. The pastures now hold many cute lambs – both twins and singles. When we’re done finding our kiwi (usually by early afternoon), there’s sometimes farmwork we can help with. We’ve helped with mustering (riding on the motorbike to round up sheep), drafting (separating ewes, hoggetts, and rams), and docking (clipping lambs’ ears and putting rubber bands on tails and balls to cut off blood supply and make them fall off). It’s fascinating to watch the dogs work for Dave. He barely has to do anything… but when the dogs do misbehave it’s rather amusing to hear kind Dave’s voice change to crazy Dave. 🙂
Here are some photos for your enjoyment. In addition to farmwork, there’s a camp on the island and the police/army run drills there. (That’s what Dave, Ros, and Sarah tell me, and I don’t think they’re all pulling my leg!)
In the woolshed…
Docking…
There was even a wedding in August! Sarah, Rose, and I got to attend the pre-reception reception in Xtra Tufs because we had helped decorate camp and hose down the barge.
We definitely have more happening on the island than just farming and kiwi research! The crew is fun, I have 4 puppies I can visit, and our findings are never quite predictable.
Life is pretty interesting out there! I like it, but St. G will always be my island home, I think. (No offense, NZ.)