Seabirds – as a general rule – are rather large. Large wings designed to sail the wind’s currents; a long beak equipped with a salt-extracting unit and a large pair of paddle-like feet are de rigueur in seabirds. Unlike most seabirds though, the common diving petrel (kuaka) has few of these attributes. It’s fitted out […]
Blogger: Forest & Bird’s Seabird Conservation Advocate, Karen Baird For the next few days, I am going to be based at the Oiled Wildlife Response Unit identifying the feathered victims of the oil spill that occurred over a week ago. This grim cargo is being carried ashore at an alarming rate and already we have identified over a thousand birds […]
Blogger: Forest & Bird’s Marine Advocate Karen Baird Auckland city is a watery one by most standards – so it seems fitting, if not a little ambitious to give its 1.4 million citizens a watery playground of national park status. For 11 years councillors and bureaucrats have trumpeted the formation of the Hauraki Gulf Marine […]
Blogger: Forest & Bird’s Kermadec Campaigner/Advocate, Karen Baird Day 8 Today we explored Raoul island – the largest island in this archipelago and one of the most explosive cones in this volcanic arc. One passenger Peter missed the rock we were alighting onto and plunged into the swirling sea, whereupon his automatic lifejacket instantly inflated and […]
Blogger: Forest & Bird’s Kermadec Campaigner/Advocate, Karen Baird Day 4 I barely noticed we had anchored off Raoul island except for a slight change in the motion of the ship at 2am. Early morning on deck and black-winged and Kermadec petrels wheeled in big arcs over the boat and curious young boobies cruised past looking at […]
Blogger: Forest & Bird’s Marine Advocate, Karen Baird After my sailing adventure through the Kermadec Region last year, this time I am joining 48 other passengers on an ecotour adventure to the Kermadecs with Heritage Expeditions. Tourist trips to this isolated archipelago are very rare with expeditions occurring once every year, or couple of years. I’m […]
Blogger: Forest & Bird’s Marine Advocate, Karen Baird While climbing into the tiny wooden dinghy bouncing perilously around in rather rough seas and strong winds next to our chartered fishing boat, I reflected on what we were trying to achieve. Our team was led by Peter Harrison (MBE), who published his authoritative ‘Seabirds of the […]
Blogger: Karen Baird, Forest & Bird’s Kermadec Advocate On Monday, we rolled into wind-lashed Raoul island – an anvil-shaped volcanic island at the northern edge of the Kermadec ridge. The island has poor anchorage and setting foot on the island was further complicated by the fact our dinghy’s motor was now defunct . Under the watchful gaze of three Galapagos sharks, we […]
Blogger: Forest & Bird’s Marine Advocate, Karen Baird Ahoy thereI I am coming to you from the rollicking, rolling hull of the SV FalconGT. This whole typing business is a one handed affair because I need the other hand to clutch the table while gripping the side of the seat with my thigh! We […]