Our return voyage on the Marion Dufresne was very different from the voyage south. The first voyage was for logistics resupply, and delivery (and uplift) of personnel, plus we had twelve fare-paying tourists on board. The voyage back was an oceanographic survey voyage. There were a similar number of passengersRead more
The purpose of our visit to Ile aux Cochons* was to undertake a pilot study of the foraging ecology and at-sea distribution of South Georgian diving petrels (’jojos’) to compare with the closely related (and similar-looking) common diving petrels (’plon plons’) that we had studied on Ile Mayes the previousRead more
I have yet to find an explanation for why this gem of an island is called ‘Ile aux Cochons’*. The nearest beasts to hogs that are on the island are the fat slugs of juvenile elephant seals that lie snorting and belching along the shoreline, and there is no evidenceRead more
Isles Kerguelen harbour an astonishing diversity and abundance of seabirds, with 33 breeding species. We had seen breeding colonies of several of the larger species on Grand Terre, but Mayes provided a taste of what the islands would have been like before their discovery – and the introduction of cats,Read more
The Crozet Islands are one of three subantarctic island groups in the southern Indian Ocean that together form the ‘Terres Australes’ of the Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises (TAAF). They are large islands (though much smaller than Kerguelen, which we visited next), with the two largest islands both exceeding 13,000Read more
Few New Zealanders had heard of Reunion Island before a chunk of wing from missing flight MH370 washed up on the eastern shore in early 2015. But the island is well-known to ecologists as one of the worst examples of the impacts of humans on island ecosystems. More than halfRead more
New Zealand has a new species of seabird. Te Papa scientists recently described Imber’s petrel (Pterodroma imberi) from the Chatham Islands as a new species. A previous study that measured a large number of seabird bones from the Chatham Islands found three size categories. The largest bones belong toRead more
The last vestiges of light are fading over Paparoa National Park, Westland in the South Island of New Zealand. As the skies darken, a magnificent silhouette can be seen soaring above a small group of scientists. Soon one silhouette becomes many and within fifteen minutes of the first sighting, birdsRead more
Te Papa vertebrate curator Dr Colin Miskelly recently spent 10 days at Punakaiki (on the West Coast of the South Island) as part of a Te Papa seabird research team. This blog reports on what the team found underground within a specially protected area of Paparoa National Park. As describedRead more
The main attraction at Gould Bay – in fact the only reason the Gould Bay camp exists – is a large emperor penguin colony. On my first visit I counted just under 6300 live chicks, and estimated that there would have been about 7500 breeding pairs at the start ofRead more
New Zealand has an amazing diversity of seabirds. Around 1/3 of the worlds 348 species are found in New Zealand waters, with a high number of endemic and threatened species among them. Te Papa has a long-term research programme on Westland Petrels, a species that nests in the coastal cliffsRead more
Te Papa vertebrate curator Dr Colin Miskelly recently spent 12 days on Ohinau Island (east of Whitianga, Coromandel Peninsula) as part of a Te Papa seabird research team studying flesh-footed shearwaters. This blog reports on the seabird species found on the island and nearby Ohinauiti Island. Ohinau is a 43Read more
I’m Mathilde Meheut, a French biology student travelling in New Zealand who had the chance to do some voluntary work at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. In this blog, I’ll tell you about some of the work I got involved in at Te Papa during a fewRead more
By Alan Tennyson, Curator of Vertebrates I was invited by Chris Gaskin (Forest & Bird) and Matt Rayner (Auckland University) to join a party in February 2013 on the Mokohinau Islands to hunt for the nesting grounds of the recently rediscovered New Zealand storm petrel (Fregetta maoriana). This island groupRead more
Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly recently visited the Poor Knights Islands Nature Reserve, off the Northland coast, as part of a research team tracking the at-sea movements of Buller’s shearwaters. The project is led by Graeme Taylor of the Department of Conservation, and is intended toRead more
