Gone With the Wind... Almost.

Our amazing luck with weather has held, today dawned bright and clear as we prepared for another day of lectures and light hiking. Our lectures today consisted of an overview of the invasive animal species in New Zealand and solutions to that problem.

Pablo Garcia Diaz elucidated us on the many difficulties that New Zealand has faced in its quest to reclaim the island from the exotic invasive species that have grown out of control, like brushtail possums, stoats, and the rat. Later, Will Allen explained the different communication techniques that are required to create successful and long-lasting partnerships for sustainability and conservation. He often stressed that the most successful method of improvement for a project or team was constant self-evaluation; you have to understand why something worked or didn't work so that you can continue successes but avoid repeating mistakes.

As a final exercise he had us create rubrics for our course so we may evaluate what we liked/disliked, and what was successful/needs improvement. By the end of the course they'll be filled out with notes on what can be improved, so look out Dr. Hostetler!

As the lecturing half of our day drew to a close, we stopped at Coffee Culture for our morning teatime, then headed to the Ahoriri Scenic Reserve for a light hike to the top of a bluff.

It was a gorgeous hike full of native flora, like five finger (in Maori whauwhaupaku), and tussock grass. While we walked, the bellbirds (korimako) serenaded us and the curious fantails (piwakawaka) swooped in for a closer look. The view from the top of the bluff was well worth the hike, even if the wind threatened to blow us off the edge...

don't worry we were told to not go anywhere near the drop off.

After hiking back down to the Gatorwaka we drove to Governor's Bay to look for a royal spoonbill, rather like our roseate spoonbill, just white. Unfortunately it was still too high a tide to find it wading in the bay, but we enjoyed the view of the tide receding from She Universe, our afternoon tea time spot.

As we left Canterbury behind we caught a white flash in the bay that could have been the spoonbill, but we may never know. - Corinne