How could I forget

Looking back over the postings from the trip I realized I forgot the parrot attack.  Yes, you read that right, we (well specifically our van) was attacked by parrots.  Coming back from Milford Sound I saw a parrot running along side the road in one the turn offs.  I was able to ID it as a Kea as we went past.  Shortly there after we came to another turnoff on the road, and this time there was a car parked in it with 2 keas perched on top of the car.  We turned off to get a picture and the birds flew over to our van.  I got out and started taking pictures.  One of them flew down to the door and my mom told me not to let it get in the van.  It apparently heard her and expressed its annoyance by biting the rubber door insulation and taking a pretty good chunk out of it.  You could totally see the resemblance to falcons in the way it bit and twisted.  I decided that it could take my finger off it it wanted, and since I want to keep Aub as a friend of mine (she has a strict policy regarding missing appendages, when you meet her she expects you to keep everything you got on day one), I decided to stop trying to poke it.  Eventually they both went on top of the van, and then as a car drove by one flew over and rode away.  We started driving too, and our bird stayed put for quite a while.  We tried getting a picture of it hanging on to the sky light, but it didn't take in time.  Apparently this behavior is common as their destructive nature regarding cars is noted. 

14 xii 2011 (part 2)
0245- sleeping
0716- almost to my grandpas house in Anaheim
0905- catching up on email
1537- hanging around the house while my parents went to the grocery store

Lunch- Wahoo's steak tacos with rice and beans
Dinner- Green Chile Dish my mom use to make all the time with chile, tortillas, cheese, and meat

Random Fact: At the soda fountain my grandfather worked at in high school they had not hot running water, so dishes had to be washed using water boiled in a bucket.  Apparently the dishes that had had gravy on them were the worst.

It's always nice to be back in the US, especially when you get to visit family along the way.  My grandfather just turned 97, so hearing stories of the past is always an interesting part of the visit.  Today though mostly he wanted to hear about New Zealand- someplace he always wanted to visit but never did (although he use to talk on his HAM radio to lots of New Zealanders).  I'm glad I can point people to this blog for trip details rather than trying to remember (and often forgetting) every story.  It's also amazing how much email I had after 48 hours without internet. 

Penguins

11 xii 2011

011- Walking to the dock to start the glow worm trip
416- Working on the computer
1254- sleeping
1947- On the boat in Milford sound looking at some pretty amazing waterfalls. 
                   
lunch: sandwich, cheese, granola bar
dinner: fish and chips

Random Fact: The main fall at Milford Sound is 3x the height of Nigeria Falls, but not nearly as wide

We woke up and went to Mass.  It was a really small church with a recorded musical accompanist.  Once church was out we went back to the camp finished loading things and then stopped for breakfast at a café.  I had chocolate ice cream.  Then we headed off to the sound.  The drive was beautiful along a winding road.  We stopped a few times and took pictures of the views.  Lots of steep cliffs and rivers, lakes, and streams.  I also saw some decent grass patches and did some sweeping.  Not a lot of leafhoppers but I did get a couple of them.  We had to drive through a mile long tunnel (one way at a time), after which the road got really narrow (at some points just a single lane) and twisting. The road would have been super fun to drive in a zippy car.  Once we got to the Milford Sound visitors center we checked in for our boat ride and then walked along the dock.  Our boat is pretty cool looking- it’s a powerboat, but with sails (although we later found out it didn't have a keel so they only put up one or two of the sails at a time in the morning cruises).  We boarded and picked up our lunches. Mom took my salad and other vegetable matter and gave me cheese.  After we ate we went up to the upper deck and watched the scenery. We were able to sail along really close to the shoreline, in some areas the mist from the waterfalls would soak us.  We saw a bunch of fur seals on a rock- they were all sleeping pretty soundly.  The weather was great, apparently it hadn't rained in 6 days something of a record.  It wasn't very windy either- there was some wind being funneled down the sound, but that was it.  When we got to the end of the sound and entered the ocean the swells picked up (we got some pretty good bow spray going on and  some of the people sitting near the bow got pretty wet).  Dad pointed out a bird and I glanced at it and thought it was a seagull. Turned out I was pulling a Nick, as shortly thereafter the guide pointed out one flying overhead and said it was a wandering albatross.  We got an awesome view of one flying over the boat, and saw another few behind the boat.  Then we turned around and headed back up the sound.  We stopped under waterfall that was 150m high and got some pictures. Apparently there is a Maori legend that says 10 years is added to your life if your face is hit by mist from the waterfall.  We also motored through a small bay and then went by another group of seals.  Back at the dock we disembarked, bought the picture/calendar thing the boat company made, and walked back to our van. We watched some birds on the walk back.  The drive back was nice, mom led the way through the tunnel since the light changed just as we pulled up.  We got to Te Anau at about 630, stopped at the information center and got reservations for the campsite in Gore.  We also figured out the penguin situation for tomorrow.  We picked up fish and chips to go from the gas station next to the info center, and my dad and I got gas while my mom waited for the food.  I drove the first part of the trip while mom ate, and then we switched so I could eat.  The trip was uneventful, lots of driving through sheep country and rolling green hills.  Really pretty place.  We pulled into gore about 830, and decided to go get some beer.  We tried the convenience store first but they didn’t have beer.  So we walked to the bar/bottle store and got 6 Tui beers- an IPA.  It was a bit complicated because they didn't have any 6 packs of Tui, so we were going to buy a 12 pack, turns out they didn’t have a 12 pack so she pulled out a 15 pack and gave us 6 beers.  We took them back to the camp, and mom fought with the camera to take a picture of the 3 of us with our beers.  The beer was pretty good, and by the time we were done it was totally dark.  We took some pictures of the moon, tried to get the DVD to work (unsuccessful) then went to bed.

12 xii 2011
436- Trying to figure out how to use the DVD player in the van.  Apparently it's too complicated for any of us to figure out
1351- Taking pictures of leafhoppers
1439- About to leave camp
1908- At the Royal Albatross Center looking at penguins

Lunch: Tomatoes
Dinner: Seafood chowder and fries, with a beer

Random fact- "The Last Post" restaurant is housed in the oldest public works building still standing in the town of Oamaru.  It was originally built as the post office, then served as a couple of other things before being sold and converted into a restaurant in 1992.  Also, the Captain Cook Bar in Dunedin serves the most beer in New Zealand and has been in operation since 1860.

Well I got woken up at 830, and started the morning taking pictures of the leafhoppers I had caught yesterday.  Only one of them kept trying to get away, the rest were pretty cooperative.  Got some decent ones I think.  We left about 10, and got breakfast at a café in town.  I had scrambled eggs and toast with milk.  After we ate we checked out a couple of shops and my mom got some wool yarn to make hats for us.  We left about 11 and drove from Gore to Clinton (someone even labeled it the presidential highway), then went to Dunedin, on the coast.  I did a bit of sweeping, but again not much in the way of leafhoppers.  In Dunedin we got off the main road and worked our way to the tip of the peninsula, where the Royal Albatross Center is located.  This was another amazing drive.  The road was really narrow and at the edge of a steep cliff without much in the way of a guard rail.  Its amazing how steep a slope the sheep can graze.  The views were also amazing- ocean view on one side and bay view on the other.  At the center I found out we could look from the cliff overlook and see spotted shag and spoonbill nests, and if we went to the beech we could see nesting blue penguin.  The albatross colony was on the back of the cliff and only visible with the tour.  I thought I would rather take my chances on seeing an adult fly by then go on the tour, which was 40 a person.  The lady at the ticket counter told me yesterday the weather was really nice and there were albatrosses all over the area, but today the weather wasn’t as nice so the chances of seeing one were pretty slim.  We went outside and spotted the shags and spoonbills pretty fast.  The shags were everywhere with nests on the cliffs.  We got some great views of the adults feeding the nestlings by the young sticking  their heads in the adults mouths and eating (I'm so glad I'm not a shag, and I think my parents are too).  Tons of gulls- mostly red billed gulls, but also some black backed gulls.  When we had gotten out of the car a red billed gull tried to steal my soul- they really are pretty spooky looking when they just stare at you and don’t fly away, especially since their eyes are pale and they have a red eye ring.  I thought I saw an albatross flying out at sea and flying into the albatross colony behind the cliff, but I couldn’t be sure.  We watched for quite a while before deciding to try our luck with the penguins.  We had to climb over the fence blocking the road (the receptionist said it was just to block cars not people, and the sign and fact the benches were set up like steps over the fence seemed to support this too) to get to Pilot Beach.  We walked down the beach, and I spotted a hole in the ground.  As we got closer I could see what looked like a white spot inside.  Pulled out the binoculars and sure enough it was a blue penguin on the nest.  We watched her for a bit,  I can't believe I finally saw a wild penguin, I was beginning to think  I would never see one.  We didn't want to disturb her though so we left after maybe 10 minutes and continued down the beach to where a  seal was hauled out.  We were able to get pretty close without him getting too concerned about us so we took pictures of that and then walked to the end of the beach.  I watched some songbirds and then we headed back.  The sun broke through the clouds and suddenly there was an albatross.  At first I wasn't convinced it wasn’t a black backed gull since they kinda look similar (although the albatross is about 3x the size), but it quickly became apparent it was an albatross.  The bird was lazily making circles around the cliff- coming into view for about ½ the circle and behind the cliff for the other half.  It did this for about 10 minutes (I'm assuming it was the same bird), and we got some really great looks at it.  There flight style and wing shape is really different from the gulls once you have them both in view to compare its pretty obvious.  My dad pointed this out, I think hes becoming a bit of an albatross spotter over this trip…  During one flight all doubt was removed when I got a great view of both the back and beak- neither of which were remotely black backed albatross like.  Then it was time to leave after a quick stop at the giftshop.  We stopped in Portobello and got some drinks (I had lemon aid with a really cool bottle top opener, kinda like the ones you see on tin cans with a pull loop).  I also pointed out some sheep in a truck to my mom.  We worked our way through Dunedin and about 2 hours later arrived in Oamaru.  We got a campsite, then decided to rent a room at the camp instead so we could have a smoother exit in the morning.  The camp person directed us to the yellow eyed penguin colony and told us they usually come ashore at 1830.  Since it was almost that time we headed over and got to the colony at 1825.  Sure enough at 1830 the first penguin came ashore, quickly followed by another.  They swim in so strangely- I expected them to be faster swimmers but it took them a while to make it onto shore out of the surf.  Once they were on shore they spent about 45 minutes or so drying themselves on the beach and standing around (typically stopping 3-4 times for about 15 minutes each) before they went into the undergrowth.  After these 2 came ashore we spotted another in the ocean swimming in but never saw it reach shore.  Around this same time a bunch of sea birds showed up and were fishing offshore so I expect there was a school in the area and maybe the penguins stayed out later to get an easy meal.  Right as we were about to leave another penguin showed up so we watched him for a while, and then a 4^th one appeared.  We left after this 4^th one had made it almost all the way up the beach (he was a penguin on a mission because he didn’t stop at all for the first ½ of the beach).  We walked back to the van and went to town.  After mom only getting slightly lost we parked in downtown and walked around looking for someplace to eat before settling on "The Last Post"  There was a loud guy from south Africa talking the ears off of the people he was with but otherwise the atmosphere was pleasant.  My soup was really good as was my beer.  My mom had a steak and my dad some salmon both of which were also good.  Then we came home and organized our things for tomorrow.

Endemic Birds [hre]

0603- Just about to go to sleep, have to be up early to catch the ferry in the morning.
1026- sleeping
1934- Sitting on the beach at Tiritiri Matangi Island watching bird.  I got a great view of a variable oystercatcher (Haematopus unicolor) sitting on a rock just offshore.
2132- We were just about to dock back at Auckland.  My dad, mom, Andy's mom, and I rode on the bow on the way back.  Coming into the harbor we had an awesome view of Auckland and the barge loading area.

Lunch- Peanut Butter and jelly sandwich, some salami, ham, ritz crackers, and cheese.  We had to bring our own lunches to the island.  Ate at the visitors center. 
Dinner- picked up Turkish food, so I had lamb and rice with sweet chili sauce.  

Random fact- Navigation Bouys in New Zealand (and everyplace else but North/America and Japan) place red on the left returning.  It threw me for a major loop seeing the bouys on the wrong sides...

Woke up shortly after 8, out the door about 820.  We walked down to the ferry and loaded up.  We grabbed seats on the 2nd deck of the sterm.  We got underway and traveled through the harbor.  After we cleared the harbor we turned for Gulf Harbor where more people would be picked up.  The trip there took about an hour.  Gulf Harbor was full of sailboats, including 2 from California, one from Long Beach and one from Redando Beach.  By this point we were standing on the 3rd level.  From there it was 15 minutes by ferry to Tiritiri Matangi Island.  After listening to the ranger ramble on we set off on a trail.  Spotted a saddleback (Philesturnus carunculatus) almost instantly.  Birding in the thick cover was a challenge, but we managed to get some New Zealand endemics (and some non natives).  The forest was really amazing.  The New Zealand pigeons (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae) were huge, and really kinda neat looking.  Tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) were really common and had some interesting feathers.  Had lunch shortly after noon, and then wandered around the visitors center and giftshop.  I quickly got bored waiting for people so sat outside and watched some tuis feeding  We then set off again and had some great views of the ocean.  We made it back to the boat with an hour to spare so walked along the beech and played on the rocks.  1515 we boarded the boat (this time we all sat on the bow) and set off.  By the time we docked at Gulf Harbor only the 3 of us and Reggie were left up front.  I took a nap, then woke up in time to take a bunch of pictures coming into Auckland.  We got some gellato, then back to the apartment.  The parents and I had a beer on the balcony looking out on our 8 degrees of harbor view.  Then Is, Andy, and I went to the conference center.  Markus and Tarla had arrived, so we all talked to them for a while, then I stood by my poster.  Talked to a couple people about it, one from Santa Catalina Island, he worked on the bald eagle reintroduction project, and apparently knew Bob back when he was on the Channel Islands.  The second guy was from Northern Arizona, but did insect systematics with Mike Whitting in Utah on Earwigs and grylloblattids.  Didn't know anyone actually worked on grylloblattids.  After my poster was done I talked to Leigh for a while then then looked at some posters.  Talked to a guy from Ethiopia for a bit, he works on grassland birds (maybe he can help me get insect permits...), and then a guy working in the UAE on Houbara.  It's such a small world.  I said I was a falconer and he aksed if I was going to the festivel.  When I told him i couldn't because of this conference he said he was having to rush back to give a presentation at it. Then I mentioned I had been there earlier this year to do insect work and he asked if I was working with Tony (which I was).  Crazy...  Afte talking to these guys I found Is and Andy, and shortly after we headed back to the hotel.  Stopped and got dinner along the way and took it home to the apartments, and we all had dinner.  After they left, we planned tomorrows leg of the journey then went to bed.  I'm going to sleep on the balcony for fun...

Pictures of the last few days to come, the connection seems to be too slow to load them...

Happy Thanksgiving [HRE}

Celebrated thanksgiving Catanach style- lots of food and football.  Since we don't like turkey we cooked up fillet mignon, twice baked potatoes, and stuffing.  The morning was spent working on my poster for the ConBio meeting next week on my Swaziland work.  Hard to believe in less than a week we'll be landing in Auckland.  I'm so glad I've talked my parents into coming.  My dad hasn't been on a real vacation since I was in 2nd grade, so he's more than due up for one.

One tradition was postponed to a few days after Thanksgiving.  My dad and I make a lemon pie every major holiday.  It's an old Catanach family recipe, so famous it's now found on the side of the Jello brand Cook and Serve Jello boxes.  My mom doesn't understand since it doesn't involve real lemons, but she humorous us.  This year for various reasons we weren't able to make it on Thursday, so we made it today.  It turned out good (as always, well except for the year I forgot to add the Jello mix...), especially with a homemade pie crust my sister made.  Its too bad she had to go back home already and didn't get to partake in pie.

I also decided to build a bigger pheasant cage.  I always forget pheasants are escape artists (Eddie compared them to rats, and it really is pretty accurate), luckily I had them in the garage.  But trying to catch a flock of birds flying around the garage isn't super fun.  After 2 hours without success building an escape proof cage I decided to leave them in the transport box another night and get some more appropriately sized wire since the big stuff didn't contain them and they kept getting their heads stuck in the small stuff.  The next day my mom and I spent another couple hours working on it, and after strapping a screen door to the top of the cage it was finally escape proof.  In the process we had to chase a couple pheasants so my mom got to experience the explosive power of these birds.  By the time we were done I was thinking we should just eat the pheasants. 

Football will not be mentioned.  Only one game turned out as I had hoped- Roll Tide [HRE].

AZ and back in a weekend

After a mostly uneventful first real week of school (including taing my first lab it was off to AZ. We got a bit of a late start even though I skipped Oz's class friday afternoon. By the time we were loaded up in the truck it was after 1400. We stopped in Caldwell for a late lunch at McDonalds then jumped on the road. Most of the drive was pretty uneventful. Cammack made a CD for the trip which had enough music to get us there and back without listening to the same song more than a couple times, mostly a mix of country and rock, so we just listened to that and talked most of the way. The highlights of the drive was seeing something burn up in the atmosphere. It was the strangest thing id seen in a long time. Bright green, flying across the sky for a good 2 or 3 seconds before disappearing. The other really fun thing was driving down the highway with the headlights off in the dark. Cammack asked if I'd ever done that and I said no so we did it, it was really cool so i made him do it a few more times. We finally got to Harrys at around 5am and found our room. Paul was already in the room I normally claim so Cammack and I got the other bedroom by the computer room. We were pretty much instantly asleep only to be awaken a few hours later by Schebert, Harry's treeing fiest. The dog ran into the room and jumped on me before decideing that i was not very interesting and running over to the bed and jumping on Cammack. We got Schebert out and I got up briefly to say hi to Harry and Paul and ate breakfast before going back to sleep. The second time I woke up I stayed awake. People started comming by the house shortly afterward to see harry while we ate lunch. Then it was time to go hunting. There were quite a few people by now gathered at the house, probabily 20 or so. The plan had been to all go fly Harry's Aplo then go watch the peres fly. However there was a miscomunication somewhere along the line and we ended up getting dividied into two groups. Me and Cammack went with Harry, Beth, and a couple others to fly the Aplo. We went to a nearby field and turned the dogs and bird loose. The bird perched on the car top while Harry and Beth got on the horses and took off. Shortly there after we got our first quail point and flush. The bird chased it nicely, but no catch. The quail was reflushed and this time after a 100 yard flight or so the Aplo grabbed it in nice flight. The fiest was near by but was unneeded to recatch the quail as the Aplo had it all on her own. The pointer ran off and found a few more birds and held point nicely while the Aplo ate. After she was done Harry boxed her back up and went to get the pointer. Then Harry called Paul to figure out where the pere group was and we took off to meet them. The pere people were being led by Tim Rierden who found a pond to fly his falcon. We came up on them and parked the truck in a long line of cars and met up with the other group then headed down to the pond. We all hung back while the pere rung up. Tim flushed the ducks and the pere stooped. The birds went back to the pond and the pere remountd. On the third remount she connected with one. It was a nice flight she caught the duck after a bit of a chase right by us so we all got a great view of it. Tim let her eat a bit of the duck then hooded her up and it was back on the road. We found another pond to try the next bird on. The bird went up although not super high and stooped the ducks nicely although didnt catch any. The ducks all flushed and we were off to the third pond and peregrine. Again it was a nice flight but no catch. This final pond was a bit of a hike from the trucks and across a barb wire fence and by the time we got back to the trucks it was dark. We loaded up and headed back to Harrys to get ready for the banquet. The Desert Hawking Classic was being held in Harry's honor so as guests of the guest of honor we got great seats with Harry and Beth. I bought a meet shirt and 3 raffle tickets plus a telemetry tickety. I didn't win the telemetry, but I did win 2 gift certificates for quail. Harry bought a ton of ticekts, so we all got to put a bunch of them in then keep track of them. I got some additional books that way since he divided up his winnings between me and Paul. As part of the festivities a few people got up and gave speeches about Harry's affects on them. The best though was one detailing various quotes from Harry over the years, the best was one likinging something with being sinful with the the 18yr old neighbor girl. Everyone got a good laugh out of that one. The club gave Harry a large bottle of Scotch. After the banquet I talked to Tim for awhile about pulling peres, I really do want to give that a go sometime in the next few years. It was now time to head for home since it was getting a late. So we loaded up in Harry's firebird and took off for home. On the way he asked Paul if hed every shown him the acceleration in the firebird, and Paul said no, so Harry gave us a taste of the Firebird. Nice car. We went home and went to bed. This time Schebert didn't wake us up, and i woke up intime to grab breakfast before making the new anklets for boeri. Once they were made we got him and cast him. I put the new equipment on and then got him on the fist for a little bit. Then I boxed him up and finished packing up the last of our stuff before loading up in the truck and heading back east. Boeri screamed all the way to Las Cruces. By this point i was trying to figure out any way to make him stop, cause belive me a screming bird in the middle seat of a ranger is not conducive to a good road trip . I thought if i had a hood that might help a bit. I called Angel first since Boeris is about the size of a tiercel Aplo. I left him a message and he called me back after a few min. He was hunting quail, and didn't have a hood anyway but suggested Pete Jungerman might have one. I found Petes number and sure enough he had a hood that would work. So we stopped by his house and after struggling to get it on the normal way we cast him and stuck it on. That quiteed him instantly. Then me and Cammack took a tour of the breeding birds, Cammack liked the goshawks and the tiata falcons. then it was back in the truck agian. We finally got into College Station around 2 AM, dropped Cammack off at his place then went to mine and attempted to get Boeri to eat something. He screamed a lot and ate a tidbit but that was all for tonight. Long weekend, but I had a lot of fun, hopefully Cammack had some too.