Who Am I?

I am a Primary Science Teacher Fellow. The Teacher Fellowships are funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand. The Fellowships are designed to support the effective teaching of science in primary and intermediate schools.
Teacher Fellows are placed in a science organisation for two terms to gain an appreciation of the Nature of Science - doing science work in a 'real life' setting. I am lucky enough to be hosted by Wellington Zoo.
To find out more about the Teacher Fellowships or see what other teachers are doing click the links in the side bar.

Monday, 7 October 2013

Checking Penguin Boxes

Joel at Kau Bay
Last week I went out to check the boxes in Kau Bay on the northern end of the Miramar Peninsula. As it is the school holidays I took my son Joel along with me. As usual (it seems) I was on a North facing beach so the wind was blowing hard from the North!
We had to find and check the penguin nest boxes in the area but this time we had no map! We turned it into a treasure hunt. Our job was to find the boxes, check them, use the GPS to mark them and photograph their position so the next time they're checked it will be much easier.
The first box we found was number 9 so we worked back around the headland and found the ones we had missed. It was good having Joel with me as he was an excellent finder and much better at climbing under trees.
In all we found 22 boxes, but some numbers were missing and we dug up a couple of boxes that were buried in stones.
Out of all those boxes only two were occupied by Little Blue Penguins. It was a great day though and we got some useful information.
An occupied nest box - see how the flax and grass help hide the box and give the penguins cover as they are coming and going from their nest.
The Little Blue Penguin in the nest box. Can you see the egg just in front of its foot?






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