Have I mentioned I got busy?

Well, it's been a week of work and fun and lots in between. I promised last time to fill you in on the content of my work here, so I'll start with that.

In the last week or so I have been on three bird walks, caught some hummingbirds, readied some peppers for planting, done some water quality monitoring and helped put in some fenceposts. I've also been assigned a couple of projects to get stuck into over the summer, the main one is a survey of a species of native toad, and the second is work to better understand the impact of the invasive species (pest) American bullfrog. Phew.

The bird walks are really interesting. We go with a guy called Stan who reminds me of John Staniland in that he knows all there is to know about the bird species in this area, and can just stand and listen and hear birds and name them. On a weekly basis we walk through an area every Thursday for 2 hours or so, rotating through five different sites, and then once a year (which happened to be on my first Saturday) there is a big one where all five sites are done at the same time over four hours. On the weekly one there might be six or seven of us, but on the annual one there was at least 50 people involved. It's a good chance to get to know people and find out why they're there, and also talk about the birds. They've been doing this for I think eight or more years now, and it provides really good data on trends and things. And it's already doing wonders for my technique with binoculars!

The hummingbird catching was part of a monitoring and banding project that is being conducted in the area. A Rocha has some hummingbird feeders which are regularly restocked, and so is a good site to be included in the monitoring project. So, two ladies came out at 8am on Friday morning, and I spent three hours with them, and caught a total of eight birds. They are pretty tiny, about the size of a childs palm, and weigh about 4 grams. They move fast though, so I was pretty happy to catch all eight that flew into the net trap arrangement that was put around one of the feeders. 100% success rate :-). The ladies carefully weighed and measured the birds, checked for fat deposits and parasites, and (funniest of all) were very pleased whenever they were able to collect some pee or poo. They will be checking for pesticides, but need samples from about 60 birds per test, so it is quite the mission to collect enough.  We managed to catch a bird just as a group of school children were going by on a program, so they were able to crowd around and get a bit of a lesson on bird banding. As an untrained person the only time I was able to touch a bird was as it was being released, and that was very cool. Happily I'll be here when they come back for more monitoring, so I hope to be able to help again.

The pepper planting was part of our introduction to the sustainable agriculture aspect of the work here at Brooksdale. All the interns have been given an introduction to the three main areas of work, (the other two being conservation science (my area) and environmental education) before getting stuck into our particular area. For the education intro we got to play a very well designed game that shows children how nutrients move through a food web, and how hard top consumers (with the exception of humans) have to work to get enough food. We then went for a walk through the bush to identify some plants, and then to the pond with a net to find some insects and tadpoles to look at. That was fun. For the agriculture intro we got talked through the history and some of the theory of the garden here, and then go to get our hands dirty. I found the theory regarding how the funding model for the garden works to be pretty interesting. It's called CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is a prepaid subscription to the produce from a garden or farm. Depending on the garden or farm there can be lots of variation, in the produce, the timing, the volume etc. However, what it does is gives farmers certainty of funding, and shares the risk of something going seriously wrong (bad weather or an outbreak of pests etc.) between the producer and consumer. It also brings the two parties much closer, and so is more efficient in getting local food to local families. Some of the subscriptions are sponsered by churches to go to refugee families or communities, and the farm produce also supplies the  a Rocha community which is a pretty significant number of people in any given week. As the season progresses we'll be helping with harvesting, and when it's our turn to cook will be expected to use in season produce.

The water quality monitoring was two hours of walking along the river to 11 different sites to test for a number of different quality indicators like pH and dissolved oxygen. This is part of a contract with the city following development in the area of some industrial sites. We got to wear high vis vests, and look all official while following sometimes challenging tracks through the vegetation and trying to aviod blackberry bush prickles. It was a nice afternoon, and at times I was reminded of bush crashing in the Waitakeres when we go to refresh the rat bait stations at Ark in the Park. And I managed to keep my feet dry, so that was a bonus.

Finally, the fenceposts. One of the aspects of the Conservation Science program is habitat restoration. This at times involves invasive species (weed) removal, re-meandering streams (I referred to this as 'putting the bends back in' but my accent proved to be difficult to understand and I had to change 'bends' to 'curves'! Then they got it), planting trees, and fencing off areas of stream to keep livestock out. So, on Saturday, in the rain and cold, four of us went to another location on the river valley (actually a rehab centre for women coming out of addiction) and put in some fenceposts. I have now helped measure and put in by hand about six posts, including pounding them in! We were talking afterwards about how fit farmers are, and it's no wonder they made the best rugby forwards for the All Blacks back in the day. It was hard work, but we only did it for the morning, it was certainly effective in warding off the cold even though we got a bit wet, and I have been surprisingly not sore today so that's a happy thing. And there's definitely a sense of achievement afterwards. Better than a gym workout any day.

I've been having a lot of fun conversations with people about NZ conservation in general (how a lot of what we do is killing stuff!) and A Rocha in particular. I am planning to do an evening talk sometime while I am here on both those topics, and plenty of people seem interested to attend. I have realised I'm in a really good situation here. No one expects me to know anything about Canadian species, so that's great. But even better is that while I often feel like I don't know an awful lot about NZ conservation, I know a lot more than anyone else here, so I can sound very learned and knowledgeable.  It doesn't get much better than that! I can assure you that I'm not making anything up, though at times it's a little tempting.

I'll save the talk about the toads and bullfrogs for next time, I'll know more then anyway. I have also had some non work fun times here. We went to White Rock on Monday, it's got a long straight beach and promenade with a pier and a (surprise) white rock that you can see in the distance in my photo from the end of the pier. It was a nice place to stroll for the afternoon, and nice to have a change of scenery. There was also a visitor info centre there, so i was able to get some maps and other ideas for my time here.

I succeeded in cycling to the closest main centre, Langley, on Tuesday, and was pleased to do the rounds of some thrift stores for some much needed supplies, T shirts and socks and an electric kettle (the coach house here only had a stovetop one which was driving me nuts). I reached maximum capacity of the wee backpack I have with me, there's no basket or rack on the bike, so I'll have to plan any purchases pretty carefully. Happily the socks fit inside the kettle, so I made it home with everything I had :-). I needed the socks as it's definitely colder than I was expecting here, so it's socks and shoes most days. Trust me, I'm not complaining, after the heat of Thailand it's a welcome change, just something I need to manage.

We've had some fun intern times, getting to know each other and work out what we're going to do with our weekends. Some games, some communal baking and a movie or two. I did however decline to watch any of the Twilight movies. I just won't even start on the things that are wrong with those (I've actually only seen one, that was more than enough!). Occasionally my accent causes some amusement, the german girl Kathy in particular has to ask me to repeat myself a bit, and the others sometimes translate. Of course sometimes it's not actually the accent, I'm just using a word she doesn't know, so that's a whole other issue. Today I managed to get a second bike ready to ride which I am very pleased about. It was just a bulging inner tube issue and I was able to deflate, reseat and reinflate with no drama. It's one of the few things I feel competent to do to a bike, so I am very happy that it was a problem I could solve. Now we have two bikes, one of the other interns (Heather from Alberta) and I are planning an excursion tomorrow to another scenic touristy spot called Cresent Beach. I'll fill you in next time.

That's enough, thanks for sticking with me. I'll have more photos for the next post.
I'll write again soon
Love
Sarah

PS thanks for your comment Deanna, nice to know you're enthusiastically waiting for each new installment :-)