Apparently every girl knows about the wild pony’s of Chincoteague Island. Personally, I’m not bitter that I was left out. I’m just glad I was allowed to visit eventually. During our Earth Day camping trip, we spent a long relaxed morning sitting in lawn chairs, drinking tea and watching a pony drama unfold. The story starts like so many….

with a group of mares grazing and relaxing.

Adrian was worried that it sounded like only she liked sheep and that I just got drug along (oh, woe is me! woe is me!). So, I wanted to issue a clarification.

As livestock go, sheep are among the most charismatic and tasty. As such, I had a keen interested in photographing them in various situations (being herded by dogs, being sheared, etc) and eating them prepared in various ways. I am not a big fan of wool since I’m from Texas and you really never need anything heavier than a long sleeve T-shirt there. Still, even without a compelling need to see (or touch) the wool portion of the Sheep and Wool festival, I thought it was a marvelous way to spend an afternoon.

Now the record is straight!

Now with Tongue!

Adrian likes sheep (can you blame her?) and thus, when she noticed that the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival was coming up, it went on our calendar of things to do and last weekend it rolled around. The festival was held just outside Baltimore and I had expected it to be smallish. Boy was I wrong! We arrived early in the day to find traffic backed up and the fair grounds parking nearly full, including the overflow.

Dreads

In addition to my dolphin tour, I went on the Albatross Encounter offered by Encounter Kaikoura. Kaikoura is home to many species of Albatross including the wondering albatross as well as many of the “smaller” species (which are still huge). In addition to Albatross, you see many other terrestrial as well as pelagic sea birds. On our trip, the ocean was nearly flat with very little wind. This was good for keeping the camera study, but not so good for seeing albatross in the air. They need the wind to get air born. Most of the great and wondering albatross were just bobbing about on the water. We did see many of the smaller species in the air though. They seemed to be less picky/lazy.

A Salvin's albatross soars low over the water.

The albatross were something between amazing and totally comical. Their wings are so huge, even compared to their large bodies, one wonders how they don’t break a wing frequently. Their landings on the water are essentially a mild crash (they don’t seem to go much for style points) and they often unfurl their massive wings during squabbles so that two or more birds have the 1 to 2 meter wings sticking straight up while they snap with their beaks. However, while in the air, the efficiency of their bodies can be seen. They rarely flap their massive wings and glide very low over the water. I routinely saw them drag wing tips in the water while turning.

One of my stops in New Zealand was Kaikoura. It is a very popular destination for tourist, and it isn’t hard to see why. The terrain is rugged and beautiful (it reminded me of northern California in many ways, only much prettier). The ocean is teaming with life including seals, dolphins, whales and terrestrial and pelagic sea birds. The only drawback to the area was its popularity. It was a bit mobbed with tourists.

Dusky's jump in the distance.

I took a dolphin tour and swim with Encounter Kaikoura (I also went on the albatross encounter, but that is for another post). They operate environmentally responsible dolphin tours that take you to see wild dusky dolphins in the waters around the peninsula. A few people (first come, first serve) are allowed to swim with the animals. They are wild and whether they give you the time of day, or simple continue to swim on ignoring you depends entirely on their mood that day. In our case they hung out and observed us (what are theses strange splashy black sausage things?!?!?) while they socialized. Dusky dolphins are one of the smallest dolphins, but also the most naturally acrobatic. It wasn’t long after the tour started before dusky dolphins were jumping and flipping all over the place.

New Zealand is the land of birds and ferns. Before the Māori arrived 800 or so years ago, the only land mammals on the islands of New Zealand were several species of now extinct or severally endangered bats. As a result, New Zealand was and still is a land of birds and ferns. Of course, I’ve already posted about kiwis. Here are the rest of the terrestrial birds I managed to photograph. There are of course, other birds that I didn’t manage to get a decent (or any) picture of.

Keas

The kea (Nestor notabilis) is an alpine parrot endemic to the alpine areas of south island of New Zealand. Keas are intelligent and curious, like most parrots and are known for pulling the rubber from parked cars. They have also been known to steal sunglasses, cell phones or just about anything else.

Keas are very curious and will investigate you if you allow them. In this case, the kea is investigating the camera.

I’ve been struggling with how to blog my New Zealand trip for a while and I’ve finally decided to do it by subject instead of narratively. Since New Zealand is the land of the kiwi, I’ll start with them!

Adrian really wanted to see kiwis in the wild, so we booked a guided kiwi spotting trip with Ruggedy Range (who put together a well run and pleasant trip). Kiwis are normally nocturnal. Steward Island is the only place where they can possibly be seen foraging during the day time in the wild. Even so, they are very skittish and private. We spent three days hiking, looking for kiwis and saw 3 for a total of about 20 minutes all together. Of course, kiwis are also well camouflaged. I failed to photograph the first kiwi we saw. I couldn’t pick it out and ended up photographing a brown clump of grass by mistake. Only when I reviewed the image did I realize my mistake, seeing the actual kiwi on the edge of the frame. All the pictures here are from our second and third kiwis.

The kiwis on Stewart Island are Stewart Island Brown Kiwi (Apteryx australis lawryi) and are endemic to that island alone.

A brown spotted kiwi forages in the underbrush.

Disclaimer: These blogs are usually a joint effort. I put in a rough draft…then Andrew fixes it up and makes it pretty. Andrew is on his own adventure right now, so this blog is all me and not as pretty.

I spent 3 fantastic days camping with penguins at Cape Royds! How cool is that? Three days camping in Antarctica with penguins and a historic hut… Really it doesn’t get much cooler than that.

Cape Royds camp is spread over volcanic rock. The yellow tent in the foreground belongs to the soil researcher. The Soctt tent (pointy) in the background is a permanent camp fixture. The rack tent (blue), is the communal tent and has power. Solar panels allow the researchers to charge their laptops daily. You can't see it, but there is even an antenna tower for internet!