I am relieved. We found tawaki in the water. And lots of them. And exactly where I said we would find them. So my job is basically done. After the relative penguin-scarcity we had experienced on our random walk tour yesterday, we managed to get out to Gull Rock today. It was still quite bouncy...
I should use my superlatives more carefully. Because if yesterday’s swell was impressive, the waves that shook Jackson Head today were tremendous! However, when I first came to the Wharekai Te Kou walk car park I could only suspect that. I dropped off Hongo-san and Kamai at the car park – the Ida-sans and Sam...
Wow! Yesterday’s swell was good, but today it was impressive. Huge wave monsters stormed towards Jackson Head and crashed with a thunder onto the rocks when we headed out to the site just around lunchtime. Although it was still 3 hours until high tide, it was really difficult to get through without being washed off...
In which the acquaintance of two interesting, surprisingly untimid Tawaki is made.
Sitting on a desk all day is quite nice sometimes, but usually I prefer field work. A lot. And today was a prime example why that is so. For most of the day the weather was gorgeous. Hongo-san was back in business, the two Ida-san’s and Sam were back from filming Tawaki swimming in creeks....
The first day back at Jackson Head since almost two weeks and lots of juvenile tawaki have arrived.
In truly appalling weather Popi and I managed to recover our first GPS logger carrying tawaki this afternoon. And despite all my concerns about difficulties of recovering penguins in the rugged terrain of Jackson Head it went extremely smoothly (well, smoothly as it can go while it is bucketing down cattle and sheep). It went...
