Te Papa vertebrate curator Dr Colin Miskelly recently led a team that visited Takapourewa / Stephens Island Nature Reserve, to select and gather up 100 fairy prion chicks to move to Mana Island near Wellington. This is the second in a series of blogs about the project and the wildlifeRead more

Te Papa’s Curator of Terrestrial Vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly visited Taranga for a week in December 2010 as part of his research into the life and fieldwork of the naturalist Edgar Stead. Here, Colin describes the reptiles found on the island, along with reptile records from surrounding islands, and theRead 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

Titi Island is a 32-ha reserve administered by the Department of Conservation and situated in the outer Marlborough Sounds. The island’s fauna was impacted by introduced Norway rats until these were eradicated in the early 1970s. The island has since been free of all introduced predators. Two species of largeRead more

The Poor Knights Islands, northeast of Whangarei, are perhaps best known as a world-class diving location, but the life on land is no less astonishing and it really comes alive at night. In December 2011, I assisted seabird expert Graeme Taylor with his work on the migration of Buller’s Shearwaters. Read more

Parakeet beaks found on Stephens Island. Photograph reproduced courtesy of Colin Miskelly

In December last year I was contacted by Department of Conservation staff on Stephens Island reporting that they had found a bone that looked like a parrot’s beak in their vegetable garden, and asking if I could help identify it. Stephens Island Nature Reserve lies off the northern tip ofRead more