Norm teasing a young gannet
Woke up to a gorgeous day on the beach and headed out to a 4 hour excursion to the top of the cliffs where there are three colonies, and about 20,000 Gannets. There are only three regions in the world where Gannet colonies exists: The North Atlantic, South Africa, and the largest is here, in New Zealand! For such a clean environment, what a stinky place!
The Gannets come here to nest, lay a single egg, and Mom and Dad work for 9 months, sometimes diving about 250 feet into the ocean and catch fish on the way up, then nourishing the chick, readying it for it’s first flight. At this point, the chick is much larger than the parents. When they are ready, the chick will head to the edge of the ledge and jump! It has about 1000 feet to learn to fly (or crash). It will then fly 1600 miles to somewhere we can’t remember without stopping. Amazing. New research determined that the parents fly in the opposite direction. A little well deserved vacation. The chicks will return in 2 years to mate and continue the tradition.
We drove through the property of Cape Kidnappers Golf Club and were told the fascinating history of the development of the course and its prior history. The farmland was purchased by an American who designed and built the course, regarded by many as the most picuresque in the world. Green fees $400; no - we didn't pay to play.
They have embarked on a huge project to bring back the near extinct native Kiwi bird.
One of the plans is to eradicate all predators of these rare birds such as rats, weasels, ferrets, etc. They are trapping, hunting and laying all sorts of poison. Hundreds of traps all over that are checked every day. (don’t want to know how they deal with what’s inside) They have really gone so far as to build miles and miles of fencing, four feet under and above ground to the tune of 4 million dollars! Fascinating. So far they have released a dozen or so birds, and have GPS tracking devices to watch them. Their goal is to eventually release several endangered species one of which is some rare lizard. The wiseguy in me asked if the lizard would eat the Kiwi, and I could not believe (yes I can) that the lizard may eat Kiwi eggs!!!!! I guess people all over the world can be just as stupid as we Americans! Spend multi million dollars and a decade of work, then ruin it.
We arrived at the top of the cliffs via a cozy van (good for me) and saw such a spectacle! Hundreds of birds of varying maturity. Lots of pictures, so I won’t go into details. We stayed about an hour and were driven back.
Woke up to a gorgeous day on the beach and headed out to a 4 hour excursion to the top of the cliffs where there are three colonies, and about 20,000 Gannets. There are only three regions in the world where Gannet colonies exists: The North Atlantic, South Africa, and the largest is here, in New Zealand! For such a clean environment, what a stinky place!
The Gannets come here to nest, lay a single egg, and Mom and Dad work for 9 months, sometimes diving about 250 feet into the ocean and catch fish on the way up, then nourishing the chick, readying it for it’s first flight. At this point, the chick is much larger than the parents. When they are ready, the chick will head to the edge of the ledge and jump! It has about 1000 feet to learn to fly (or crash). It will then fly 1600 miles to somewhere we can’t remember without stopping. Amazing. New research determined that the parents fly in the opposite direction. A little well deserved vacation. The chicks will return in 2 years to mate and continue the tradition.
We drove through the property of Cape Kidnappers Golf Club and were told the fascinating history of the development of the course and its prior history. The farmland was purchased by an American who designed and built the course, regarded by many as the most picuresque in the world. Green fees $400; no - we didn't pay to play.
They have embarked on a huge project to bring back the near extinct native Kiwi bird.
One of the plans is to eradicate all predators of these rare birds such as rats, weasels, ferrets, etc. They are trapping, hunting and laying all sorts of poison. Hundreds of traps all over that are checked every day. (don’t want to know how they deal with what’s inside) They have really gone so far as to build miles and miles of fencing, four feet under and above ground to the tune of 4 million dollars! Fascinating. So far they have released a dozen or so birds, and have GPS tracking devices to watch them. Their goal is to eventually release several endangered species one of which is some rare lizard. The wiseguy in me asked if the lizard would eat the Kiwi, and I could not believe (yes I can) that the lizard may eat Kiwi eggs!!!!! I guess people all over the world can be just as stupid as we Americans! Spend multi million dollars and a decade of work, then ruin it.
We arrived at the top of the cliffs via a cozy van (good for me) and saw such a spectacle! Hundreds of birds of varying maturity. Lots of pictures, so I won’t go into details. We stayed about an hour and were driven back.
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