The Latest (Overdue) Wonders of AU & NZ

Greetings from Christchurch, New Zealand!

I've finally gotten around to writing another update for all of you back home - I must apologize for the lack of motivation I've displayed thus far when it comes to posting. You can take it as a good sign though; I am absolutely in love with Australia and New Zealand. Everything from the vistas to the beer seems to hit the spot. Of course I can't detail it all out now, but I will do my best to provide a reasonable synopsis of the last two weeks. Time flies when you're having fun (and conducting serious academic field research of course).

I'll start with the rest of our stint at Kioloa in NSW. We settled into a pretty good daily rhythm of field projects, paper reviews/presentations, and exploring. Some of the faculty-led field problems following my group's forest survey included an ant survey where we baited the local community with tuna fish and a "roo poo" survey intended to track the foraging activity of the local herbivores along a forest edge gradient. Things were always moving - while small breaks around lunch and dinner time were part of the usual schedule, we usually had other things to be working on. A few of us even invented a bit of extra work on the side. That is, if you consider setting motion capture cameras out in the bush to catch some of the more elusive local fauna on "film" to be work. While Mark & co. wanted to find a way to implement the cameras more seriously, we quickly found out that there wouldn't actually be time for any sort of organized study. So, a few of us inspired individuals decided to distribute the cameras around the site where we deemed the most activity was to be seen. Tracking in a dry sclerophyll forest is quite a bit different from looking for deer sign in Minnesota - there was definitely no sampling the local leavings to determine animal identities (sorry Bwana Dale). I suggested the placement of two cameras near water catchment ponds, one on the pasture edge and the other some way into the forest where a number of lyrebird sightings had occurred in the previous days. A third trap was placed at a fairly fresh lyrebird lek, and two others were later placed over a sampling of colored bottle caps and an active bowerbird bower in the forest.

To briefly contextualize the last couple of choices: the two birding "grails" of our stay at Kioloa were the Satin Bowerbird and Greater Lyrebird. Both of these species exhibit fascinating mating displays and behaviour - the bowerbird has its twig bower and collection of pretty baubles (they're obsessed with the color blue) and the lyrebird puts on an impressive dance accompanied by songs which can mimic everything from other birds to chainsaws and dirtbikes. Just google them, you won't be disappointed.

Naturally, both species were top priorities for a proper sighting before we left. So with the blue bottle cap baits out for the bowerbirds (shout out to Justin L. for executing that one) and a camera in a hot lyrebird spot, the waiting game began. The cameras were collected several days later and revealed not only our desired targets, but a major extra surprise......can you name this marsupial?

WOMBAT!! Totally unexpected catch on the forest water catchment camera trap. I was ecstatic. The bowerbird and lyrebird shots were great too of course.

 Greater Lyrebird

And the discoveries kept coming. The other top find by far was one of the only egg-laying mammals on the planet. Yep, ladies and gents, a Short-beaked Echidna. My forest survey crew heard it rustling about on the side of our trail one evening on the way back to the station. After sending a runner off to find Mark, we camped out and waited for the critter to poke its head back out of the dirt (it burrowed in as soon as we disturbed it). Just as Mark came jogging up the track we caught a glimpse of its pointy little beak, and then it was straight back into the dirt. This picture is the best we could manage - that thing was seriously wedged into the ground:

The remainder of our experience at Kioloa was slightly less exciting, but by no means less interesting. When everything was wrapped up, we loaded up and headed back to Sydney for a weekend break before the flight to Christchurch. This was actual free time, and everybody had a good chance to get out and see the town a bit and sample the local night life. We went out to a couple of bars and clubs the first night as a large group and proceeded to dominate every dance floor we encountered. The apex of the night came when we managed to get Madonna's "Like a Prayer" played at Scubar (the basement bar associated with our hostel) and the traditional Carl response partially ensued. The next morning we regrouped and explored town - a number of us spent the better part of the day at the Sydney Zoo. It was gorgeous and well worth the rather steep ($50) entrance fee which included round trip ferry rides across the picturesque harbour. We ended the day with a group dinner at the Australian Heritage Hotel restaurant which served a variety of gourmet bush-tucker pizzas (I had kangaroo and curried emu) and boasted 120 varieties of Australian beer. Pinch me. Then it was off to New Zealand.

Don't worry - I'm only a week behind at this point. We landed in Christchurch last Sunday, and after waiting for the vans to arrive, headed southwest to the Southern Alps. Our destination: Flock Hill Lodge, a working sheep station near the Waimakiri River and Arthur's Pass. I wish I could properly describe the vistas in those mountains - there's really no way to do it.

Mark & The Mountains

There is only snow on the very highest peaks at this time of year, but the mountains are no less impressive. In some places, the clouds seem to reach the ground and blanket the pass in a thick veil of white. The hills are coated in grasses and shrubs (a product of European land exploitation), with pockets of native Nothofagus forest and introduced pines. There are plenty of sheep and cows scattered about as well. In the native forests, moss and lichens coat every available surface, creating a veritable fairyland.

Every stream and lake is clear and icy blue in color. And the stars are unreal. It's cooler in the Alps - usually in the upper 60s on a sunny day and in the 40s at night, always with a noticeable breeze blowing through. Flock Hill is pretty and comfortable; the staff are friendly and the food is great. During the first week, we spent most of our time conducting new field studies, hiking to identify the native plant species, and discussing papers ranging from plant masting to the ecology of extinct moas. Guest lecturers included the great Dr. Curtis Lively, a pioneer contributor to the Red Queen hypothesis of sexual evolution. His lecture accompanied a group project which had me kayaking and wading in a frigid, eel-filled lake to collect tiny snails which have become the key example of this hypothesis.

I won't trouble you with all of the scientific details, but Red Queen is absolutely fascinating. While free time was uncommon, I managed to make it a good 1/3 of the way up the mountain behind our station one day with two of my compatriots, Christian and Ryan.

We climbed over and under dense brush, scrambled up shale scree, and free-climbed up a gully to finally reach a small waterfall and pool with frigid, clear water. Of course, I stripped to my long-johns and hopped right in.

We left Flock Hill last Friday, but we will be returning again tomorrow morning (they kicked us out temporarily to host a wedding). In the meantime, we've been back in Christchurch at the University of Canterbury taking another little break and wrapping up our time with Mark. Dan is here for the next segment of the trip, and while it promises to be a blast, we'll be missing Mark when he's gone. Our last days with him here included a trip to the stunning Banks Peninsula for a tour of the Hinewai Reserve led by its dynamic caretaker Hugh, as well as a lecture on bird pollination and seed dispersal in New Zealand by Dr. Dave Kelly (a major contributor to several important papers in my recent comps; the lecture was incredibly validating).

The next week at the Flock Hill station is all about independent group field projects - my crew will be surveying the spatial distribution of the native Nursery-web Spider. Dan will also be leading hikes and lecturing as part of his seminar - conservation and management are the big areas of focus now. I will do my best to write again in a week, since there's clearly way too much to be said in such infrequent posts. Stay tuned and stay warm!!