Penguin Chicks

Here are the first two penguin chicks I saw this season. Little dark blue-grey balls of fluff.

It is now that the nest boxes are really important - the growing chicks need mum and dad to go out and get food for them. The penguin parents leave in the early hours of the morning and come back after dark, usually around 10 o'clock. This means that the chicks are left alone all day, so they are vulnerable to predators.
Their natural predators in the nest are other birds. The black backed gulls (the big gulls we see around Normandale School) love a big, fat, juicy penguin chick.
The boxes protect the chicks from seabird attack but not from introduced predators such as dogs, cats, stoats and rats. We have traps out to try and catch the rats and stoats (we found a big rat in one of our traps on this trip).
We rely on people to keep their cats indoors at night, especially at dusk and dawn when the cats hunt the most. We also want them to keep their dogs inside or on a leash when they are walking them at the beach. A dog like a terrier would have no trouble digging into these nest boxes and getting these chicks.
It's scary being a penguin chick.

Piñata for the Lions

Here is a piñata that I made for the lions. I had to make sure that there were no staples or tape left on the boxes before I started. Then for the papier mache I had to use flour and water as you can't use glue for the animals.
Why do you think we can't use glue? What different reasons might there be?

Hey what's that?

When it was all done and painted we put some meat inside it, and rubbed meat over the outside as well so it had a really nice smell for the lions.

Mine! I got it down.

CRRRunch!

The lions didn't take very long to destroy it. My poor zebra :-(

Curriculum Day

On our second set of curriculum days we were learning about forces.

One activity we did was working in pairs to make vehicles using balloons, straws and meat trays. We had a competition to see whose vehicle went the furtherest in a straight line. We lined up two tables but we didn't really need them! 

The one I worked on with my partner Jane won - that's my story anyway.

Here's a picture of us hard at work, just to show it's not all fun and games.

I'm looking forward to coming back to school and sharing what I've learnt with you.

Ohakune - Fern and Malcolm

While I was in Ohakune I got to meet Fern and Malcolm.

Malcolm talking to some students.

Fern is a species dog. That means that she is trained to find certain species of bird. Fern is trained to find whio and kiwi.
Why would you need to find kiwi and whio?
Why might a dog like Fern be better than a person?
Malcolm is a Department of Conservation (DOC) ranger and Fern's co-worker. He is very good at telling tall tales - you learn quickly not to believe everything he tells you. That reminds me of someone I know.

Here is a link to Fern's job description where she tells you all about her work looking for whio (and working with Malcolm and the other DOC rangers).
When you look at the pictures look at the special equipment that both Fern and Malcolm wear. Why would they need to wear those things? 

Fern the Whio Dog

Blue Duck or Whio

If you want to learn some more about whio, here is a link to a video from the Meet the Locals series. They are at the Whakapapa River where I saw my whio!

Meet the Locals - Whio

Ohakune Visit - Orautoha School

One special treat for me in Ohakune was a visit to Orautoha School. It is a small rural school northwest of Raetihi - for the adults it's near the start of the track to the Bridge to Nowhere.
Orautoha teaches up to year 8 and has 13 pupils currently. And you thought Normandale was a small school!
If you went there you might be the only person in year 3.
Would you like to be at a small school like Orautoha?
What might be some of the advantages and disadvantages of going to a small school like that?
They certainly were wonderful children, with a wonderful teacher/principal Amohia Rolls. When we arrived all the children stood and introduced themselves and said a little bit about themselves. They were obviously proud to go to Orautoha School.
We had a tour of their vegetable gardens and a wetland area they are restoring. The school and their community have planted 600 plants in the wetland!

Ohakune Visit - Whio

Last week I went to visit my friend Kathy in Ohakune. She is also a Primary Science Teacher Fellow and is working with the Department of Conservation and the Ngati Rangi Trust. Her main project is creating an app that will allow people in her area to record sightings of birds and water creatures.

The birds she is interested in are the kereru, whio (blue duck) and karearea (NZ Falcon). The water creatures are koura, tuna (long-finned eel) and kākahi (freshwater mussel).

While there we went on a whio hunt - trying to get my first sighting of a blue duck in the wild. We first tried the Tongariro River but no luck, though we did see a shining cuckoo! Then we tried some smaller rivers on our way back to Ohakune. Finally we were successful on the Whakapapa River.

Here he is. Can you see him?

I've zoomed in a lot. Can you see him now?

Here he is. The blue-grey colour makes him hard to find among the grey rocks. Can you see his bright yellow eye and red brown chest?

Here are some pictures of Kathy and I where we spotted the whio.