Antipodean Summer 1
I’m writing this sitting outside the hut on Antipodes Island, 870km southeast of New Zealand. The fact that I can write and post blogs from here is a bit startling,…
I’m writing this sitting outside the hut on Antipodes Island, 870km southeast of New Zealand. The fact that I can write and post blogs from here is a bit startling,…
Toroa / Campbell albatross It's no secret that I love albatrosses. Being at sea, watching them in their element is hands down one of my favourite things. Aotearoa is a…
Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) is still in L4 lockdown, which means I can't do fieldwork. I'm running out of research-related things I can do. So as well as photographing backyard birds…
I've been slopped around all night in my bunk and woke to a 3am alarm to take watch til dawn. Seasickness has me grumbling and dry-throated (thanks Scopoderm), but as…
This view, even mist-bound, is one of my favourites. The winding boardwalk down from the ridge past Beeman hill on Campbell island. Dracophyllum and tan-tussock, bright juicy green Bulbinella leaves…
It’s gone eleven at night, and still. The ocean is a gentle hush against the cliffs below, echoing in the narrow inlet. The sky is clear, velvet dark, moonless, starfull.…
Karo - Pittosporum crassifolium It’s last light, golden fragments flung from scattered clouds in an icey blue sky painting the tallest reaches of a struggling karo tree that sits outside…
Come and sit with me in the tussock, looking out across the megaherb gardens on Campbell Island. Tuck down and nest in the golden grass, sheltered from the wind strafing…
Leaving a harbour for the open sea can be daunting. We read forecasts and anticipate the swells and the wind, but experiencing the transition from stillwater to rolling ocean is…
In 2015, Enderby island was my first boots-on-ground subantarctic island experience. It was Christmas Day. I opted to see as much of the island as possible on a circumnavigatory hike…
I'm halfway up a tree and there's a Duvaucell's gecko giving me a very disconcerting grin. I'm perched so I can see across the expanse of burrowed ground that forms…
I wrote a blog a while ago about the Chatham islands, and how I was looking forward to visiting Rangatira for a seabird translocation project. It's taken me a while…
The wind was howling when I woke up, but it's an unusual day when the wind isn't howling in the southern ocean. The sky is a swirled and subtle mix…