I’ve visited the Chatham islands three times in the past four years. The best was a month spent at Taiko camp, lending a hand feeding 100 tītī (sooty shearwater) chicks that had been translocated to a predator-free sanctuary at Point Gap from Rangatira (South East Island). You can see the other things I got up to for that month here.

There’s something about the light there. There’s a wideness to the sky, and even when it’s clogged with mist and low cloud you can feel that space around you. When I flew in over the island in April, we were bathed in golden light strafing across the land. Driving down to the southern end of the island enveloped us in that dense grey mist, the light dimming into a pearly near-darkness as we arrived at camp. I would go out to watch the sunset as often as possible, and the sun seemed larger and more intense, slinking below the horizon of endless ocean. The last rays would fling themselves across the sky, and I wished that my eyes were wide enough to see it all at once.

I’m an island person. I’m also an ocean person, despite growing up land-locked around the Rotorua lakes region. While I was on Rakiura in 2018 I was describing my seabird work to the hostel owner, and he called me an ‘island-rat’ (in the nicest possible way). Hopping from island to island, chasing seabirds. At least I don’t proliferate like actual rats on islands…and I don’t eat the seabirds!

Islands have their character, and they’re all different. I get asked what my favourite island is, which is as impossible as asking me what my favourite birds is. They’re all different. They have their impressive geologies and quiet nooks, their own complement of flora and fauna, their own way of capturing the light, their own histories, human and otherwise. It’s an impossible question to answer.

Soon I’m headed to Rangatira to help out with a white-faced storm petrel translocation. It’s a new island for me, although I’ve bobbed offshore in a zodiac, I’ve not yet set foot on it. It’s so very different, seeing islands from the ocean, and being on them, surrounded by them. I’m supremely excited. It’s like I’m about to meet someone new, who I’ve admired for a long time from afar. I can’t wait to get to know the island and it’s ecosystem.