Crazy Hair Day!

On the last day of term we had a crazy hair day.

The tidal flats

Room 15 explored the tidal flats across the road from school and discovered all sorts of living creatures. There were whelks, chitons, limpets, worms, baby eels, snapping shrimp and many different kinds of crabs. Richard de Hamel came with us. He is a marine biologist. He gave us a chart so that we could identify different kinds of crabs. He taught us how to tell if they were male or female. Some of the female crabs had eggs. We put them back carefully where we found them.

Caught!

Huxley the kiwi tracking dog helped the rangers Paul and Sarah find the burrow of this great spotted kiwi. He's been trained to track kiwis and not bite them. The kiwi had its legs strapped together with electrical tape to stop it hurting itself or kicking the ranger during its health check. Paul replaced the leg transmitter while Sarah held the kiwi. Replacing the leg transmitter took a very long time. This kiwi was a female called Pariwhakaoho. She had not been sitting on an egg because there was no bare patch on her tummy. Paul felt her body to make sure she was plump and eating enough. Did you know you should not sniff when you are around a kiwi? The noise upsets them. He checked her plumage and her body for any damage or injuries. She was weighed and her weight was 3.325kg. Her eyes were checked and he also checked her beak. Pariwhakaoho had brown eyes and the rangers could see her whiskers at the base of her beak. It took quite a long time to go through the health check. At the end of the check Paul said that she was a healthy female Great Spotted kiwi and she could now go back into her burrow. Paul placed her back in her burrow and they quietly left Pariwhakaoho to settle back down in her comfortable home.
Thanks to LEARNZ for making it possible for Room 15 to be part of this field trip.

Kiwi Helping Kiwi

Our class mascot Kiwi has been to the Lake Roitoiti mainland Island project to see how the Department of Conservation are helping kiwis and other native birds. Kiwi was able to go because our school has joined the Learnz programme. While Kiwi was there he sent Room 15 some videos and email diaries about what was happening. Here are some photos of him wearing a transmitter and checking out a tracking tunnel. (Read Max's entry under The Brook Sanctuary post to find out how tracking tunnels and tubes work.) The DOC scientists used the transmitter to locate a great spotted kiwi in its burrow.