*sigh*

*sigh*...some people have no idea!!

blah

hatching takes such a ridiculously long time. 3 days ago things started to happen. we all got excited. so much so, that i came to work at 3:30 yesterday morning to be on nest watch. did anything happen. no. one hatched a few hours before i got there and then one just after i left. flew up the sinbad to look for nests. nothing. despite my best sneezing efforts. no nests. did find another one at monkey creek. but will have to steal those eggs again next week. sneezed and dripped my way around work again today. missed the fourth hatching by minutes again. in charge because everyone else off sick. me also sick. ducklings cute. feeling too crap to bust out the camera. or even get excited. have to work again tomorrow. can't shake this pathetic self-pitying crap. blah.....

sceptre mk II

started making a kite on sunday to fill in a rainy afternoon and i now have 3m of camoflague ripstop in various sized pieces spread across my floor.  managed to bend the sewing machine needle soon into the game but it will get there eventually.  bought some lovely fluorescent yellow cord for it today - should make it easier to find when it gets out of control and blows away.

 

four of our eggs did the external pipping thing today, so should hatch on wednesday.  meaning that i probably stole them on the day that poor trinity finished laying them, mean and horrible duck girl that i am.

domestic...er...bliss

i started off this morning in a fit of domestication & decided to clean out my wardrobe. this involved emptying out 3 big plastic bin loads of stuff onto the floor that hadn't been opened since i since i moved in april....that was as far as it got. i now have 3 big plastic bin loads of stuff on my floor. not entirely sure how i'm going to get from the door to my bed. spent the rest of the day reading a book about mormons - scary stuff - and generally feeling blah. think erina's bug has finally got the better of me :o(

arthur

the arthur valley provided its share of ups and downs this week. managed to scam a ride in on the waka huri huri on tuesday which was definitley a bonus - saved 19kms of walking!! found 2 wee ducklings up at sutherland falls (see pics below). only about a week old and super cute. two more pairs are still nesting but unfortunately the kerrigans nest looks to have been predated by a possum (bloody aussies!). found the remains of 2 eggs in the nest but luckily sal looks to be doing okay. ended up finishing early, so walked out to milford yesterday and then checked out the cleddau birds today. marge was busy hoovering up bugs, so will hopefully re-nest. louise's nest has also been trashed by a possum. looks like they would have been pretty close to hatching as the eggshell had feathers stuck to the inside. couldn't find her anywhere but did run into angus, the suspected father. trinity and fat freddy at monkey creek don't appear to be up to much, although their eggs should be hatching mon/tues next week (fingers crossed).

more duckies :o)

$87,000

....now that got your attention, didn't it!! I was getting really bored before working on this scholarship application that i've been dragging out for weeks when i calculated how much money i could be making. $87,000 is a lot of money for a few hours work! Got my mind back on track pretty quickly.....although my mind did keep wandering, thinking about all of the things that i could buy with $87,000. that's a LOT of toys!!

Back into the field tomorrow - the arthur valley this week to check on the status of our 4 nests. hopefully yet more wee duckies safely hatched and hoovering up the bugs.

a spring evening at parahau

the bro post-tour

ducks @ forks

gjfirsf

(too lazy to actually think of a title)......good week up the river - 10 ducklings doing their thing, although one nest was destroyed. got my camera 2 mins before i had to leave for the boat, so got a few pics but have left the usb cable at work, so can't share the joy just yet. watched the little bro race in the tour in te anau yesterday and down in inver-vegas today. he did quite wel, although had the usual dramas. raced the whole first day with his brakes jammed on and then accidentally didn't ride the last lap of the race today, so not sure what the final placing will end up being. spent more $$ in town today but came back with a few new clothes. not that there is anywhere to wear such things in little old te anau.

tutoko

ran up the tutoko track today in an insane attempt to beat my boss's record for getting to bushline. made it up there in 1:17hrs but was just pipped at the post by a measely 4 minutes. still, he's 6'2 with legs twice the length of mine, so i didn't really stand a chance. caught up with a pair of whio with 5 little ducklings which was cool. probably only about a week old and tiny compared to our monsters at the wildlife park who weighed in at over 300g today. that's over 120g gained in 6 days. not a bad effort, although they do pretty much eat pure protein, so probably not that surprising. found wade with a new unbanded girl which is great. ended up running back down the track in order to be back at the roadend in time for a pick up. made it with one minute to spare but then had to sit there for an hour waiting `cos they got a bit confused up the sinbad. starred in another exciting film session today "finding" some eggs in a nest. would have been ok if i hadn't said that i was going to go and get the truck from the incubator. hopefully that bit ends up on the cutting room floor.

off up the clinton tomorrow, so no more exciting updates for a few days

cloaked

so i was drunk last nite and wrote this big long post but the server was playing up and i couldn't concentrate long enough to even contemplate writing it all again. and i shan't try and repeat it all again `cos while drunken ramblings seem like a good idea at the time, they inevitably lead to one revealing things that one shouldn't (not saying that i had anything to reveal, of course).
anyway the drunkeness was in aid of kerri's housewarming/guy fawkes party. wore my elven cloak in public for the first time - it's hard to find the right occassion to wear 6m of polarfleece. but i was glad to have it last night, although not so good when it's windy. found some ok cider at the supermarket for a whole $6.95 a litre, so i was set up for the night. fireworks were a bit of a fizzer though.

spent today playing ducks - mainly sitting in the sun watching rod morris, wildlife photographer extraordinaire, take rolls and rolls of duckling pics for some book.

new toys

i just spent lots of $$!! Drove to invers this morning and went to all of the camera shops but no-one actually had the camera that i wanted. did pick up a pair of boots for $100 to replace my completely trashed $500 pair but still, pretty much a waste of a drive. called the chch company the second that i got in the door and ordered a brand spanking new sparkling Nikon D70s and a 28-300mm sigma lense before i could change my mind. should be here on tues - hopefully before i have to leave to go up the clinton. yay for new expensive toys!! now i will be able to post pics of ducklings ad nauseum

ooh ooh

...but i think thati'm gonna go to invervegas tomorrow and buy that camera!!

rain

rain....sums up the day really. rained all the way to milford. rained so that the rivers were too high to cross. rained and got me soaking wet trying to cross the rivers that were too high to cross. rained so that i didn't find the ducks that i wanted to because of the rivers that were too high to cross. rained all the way home from milford. still raining now.

on the bright side, had burritos and grolsch with the cool poppy-top lid thingamabobs for dinner. burritos turned out to be mouldy but the grolsch was sufficiently grolschy and came with free glasses. now i have to go outside and get all of the crap of the driveway that i left out there in the brief moment when it wasn't raining and that has now been sitting in the rain for several hours while i got sucked into crap tv *sigh*

nz rep

that smart little bro of mine has become the 2nd member of the family to represent nz. okay so i did for totally nerdy reasons but he has made it into the national road cycling team which is a pretty impressive effort. not bad for a 20 year old.

I've been trying to buy a digital camera online and i am totally confused. thought i knew what i wanted until i saw an ad in the latest wilderness mag for a canon which is better, cheaper and lighter than the nikon that i was gonna get. but i have nikon lenses, so should really stick with the nikon, i s'pose. might see if i can pick up a cheap(ish) 28-300 lense and just get the body. but not sure what to do. the old indeciveness has kicked in big time (so much so, that i just spent 5 mins unable to decide how to spell indeciveness but i'm too lazy to look it up, so have settled for a probable mispelling)

piccies

at last.....here is a whio duckling.  in fact, have five of the little peckers.

 

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brief interlude while i was shown how to feed the dogs. I am the farm for the next five days.

 

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just voluntarily organised another tv interview on friday.  we are going to go and "collect some eggs" [insert "take some hens eggs from under an aesthetically pleasing bush"].  as long as i don't have to wear the little microphone thing again.  i have a bad habit of swearing on camera!!

volleyball

have been thinking over the past few days about this whole "why do i write here" thing and have come to the conclusion that i don't really do a lot outside work (not sure where this actually fits into the whole "why do i write here" thing). so i figure that it is time i got myself some hobbies or at least partake in the ones that i kinda pretend that i already do. so dragged myself down to the volleyball competition with the work team this arvo. crazy competition with pretty much no rules - head and feet are acceptable body parts with which to strike the ball. I thought that our team in the states was dodgy but we were definitety worse tonite. almost won the first set tho, lost the second two horribley.

Finally managed to steal a digi camera today and took some photos of the ducks but managed to leave it in the back of the truck. so pics tomorrow. took some video too but guessing i won't be able to post that here.