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.

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.

Primates

Yesterday I went on section with the primates keepers Jaqui and Nathan. Sadly there are no pictures because the weather was so lousy that I didn't want to take my camera with me.
We fed and cleaned up after the pygmy marmosets, iguanas, cotton-topped tamarins, squirrel monkeys, agouti, capuchins, spider monkeys, gibbons, chimpanzees, lemurs, and golden lion tamarins.
Two of those animals are not primates - can you tell me which ones?

I had a fantastic day as I got to hand feed many of the smaller primates - giving them small pieces of fruit to eat. We had lots of fun giving rice balls to the spider monkeys. One of the females is so nimble with her prehensile tail that she can use it to pick a rice ball out of your hand.
Find out what prehensile means. Why would this be a good adaption for a monkey to have?

It was also neat to see Jaqui using hand signals and rewards to give the chimpanzees basic health checks - seeing their hands, feet, ears and mouth. It is amazing what you can do with a little smear of peanut butter. And amazing training of course.
Here are some photos of the squirrel monkeys, cotton-tops and chimps that I took on other days.

Flying Food

On Tuesday I was up at the holiday programme that the Wellington Zoo runs. They were having a 'flight day' - looking at lots of different types of wings.
One activity they did was to decorate two paper plates then glue them together with some raisins hidden in the middle. These were then thrown like a frisbee to the capuchin and spider monkeys on 'Monkey Island'.
Some plates split apart and many others ended up in the water but the monkeys loved the ones that made it across.

  

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?

Penguin Stocktake

On Monday I went out with some volunteers from NZ Forest and Bird to do a penguin stocktake of  part of the south coast between Moa Point and Tarakena Bay. We were looking for the penguin boxes that were already there (and whether they were being used), sites for new boxes and possible natural nest sites. We were also looking at options for planting new to create safe habitats and shelter for the little blue penguins.

Hunting for nesting boxes.

Sadly all I saw were two skinks, who were much too fast for me to get a photo of, and no penguins.

The storms from June had damaged the coastline and trees here. Can you see how the storm piled up stones and debris on the shore and killed off the trees?







If you look closely at this picture you can see new leaves on this 'dead' bush. They will recover in time and I'm sure the birds will return to this area.

Bird Banding

Yesterday I went out bird Banding with Peter Reese. He has been doing this for 30 years so he really knows what he is doing.
The first thing he does is put some nets up in an area of bush near a food or water source. Here there is a small stream and the native trees were flowering. Can you see the net?
You can now the sun is shining on it and so can the birds, but when it is in the shade it is very hard to see. They fly into the nets and drop into 'pockets' on either side of the net.

Here we have caught a Silvereye. You hold the birds gently but firmly between your fingers taking care not to hold it tightly around the chest. Then we put a band around the bird's right leg.

Then we measured its wing length.

Then we put it into a container to weigh it - it's not very dignified for the bird
 but they stay still and the are not hurt at all.

Here is a picture of me banding my first Silvereye. I also banded some other Silvereyes, Sparrows and a Chaffinch.

All the information we collect is passed on to the Department of Conservation.

Feeding Lanky

Well after writing about Lanky on Wednesday I went out on section with Phil the bird keeper. I was lucky enough to feed Lanky.
First we had to cut up his fish. We filleted (cut the meat off) five medium sized fish and then cut that into small chunks - roughly about 5cm squares. That is his two meals for the day.
I had to throw the fish into Lanky's beak. He lunges forward as he catches it - and that is a pretty big beak to lunge at you. It made me jump a bit the first time.
He has a real routine - he has about the first third of his meal standing by the fence and for the rest he is swimming in the water.

Sometimes Lanky decides he doesn't like a piece of fish and drops it on the ground. Then you have to break the fish up even smaller with you hands. Other times he pretends he wants the fish then ducks his head out of the way - naughty Lanky!

Lanky

This is Lanky. He is one of the oldest animals at Wellington Zoo, he is about 36 years old.

He is an Australian Pelican. Lanky is a bit fussy and will only eat his fish if it's cut up. If you are lucky visiting the zoo then you might see him being fed by the keepers - throwing bits of fish into his great big beak. A pelican that lived at Wellington Zoo before Lanky has the world record as the oldest known pelican. His name was Percy and he  lived to be 62 years old.

My questions today are about Lanky's beak. It's a pretty big beak and with that throat pouch underneath  it can hold an awful lot. 

Why would he need a beak like that? What could he carry in it? Does he carry things or is it for something else?

Look at the close up of the end of Lanky's beak. Can you see the big hook shape on the end? I wonder what that could be for?

(remember these are not a run to the internet to find the answer questions - I want you to think hard and tell your answers to someone else, have a discussion)

Checking The Traps

As part of looking after the Little Blue Penguins on the South coast the zoo looks after some pest traps. On Thursday I went out with Lynn to check some of the traps. If you remember the weather on Thursday it wasn't pleasant - really strong winds and icy rain.

Checking a trap.

Lynn walking in to the wind.

Little Blue Penguins nest in burrows on the shore in among the bushes. What sort of animals would be their predators? Think about what will eat the birds, what will eat their eggs or their chicks.

What animals do you think we are catching with these traps?

Meeting With A View

Today I had a meeting with people from Wellington Zoo, NZ Forest & Bird, Wellington City Council and Department of Conservation. We were meeting at Tarakena Bay on Wellington's South Coast talking about little blue penguins. What a beautiful place for a meeting, better than a staff room on a day like today.
If only I didn't get keep being distracted by a group of 5 shags fishing in the shallows off the beach.