Orana Wildlife Park, Shakespeare, and Chinese lanterns

We had our last round of visitors scheduled to come during our program, and we got the chance to go to a new place that we'd been meaning to visit before we even moved here: Orana Wildlife Park in Christchurch a little ways past airport. The day we went, we had a very packed day with the park in the early afternoon, an outdoor Shakespeare play 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' in the early evening, and the Chinese Lantern Festival in the late evening.

Some highlights at the park were the lion feeding where the lions climbed onto the enclosed truck to get some scraps, some fun birds like a talkative tui and a mischievous kea, and a lot of tuatara lizards, including one that was just perfectly positioned for a close-up. The cheetahs had also recently been fed and were pacing around and looking so graceful and lean. Big cats really are so similar to domestic ones and so beautiful. The Shakespeare play included one of my former students, and it didn't rain on us so that was good. We popped over to the lantern festival and the timing was good because it was by then dark enough to see the lanterns lit up nicely and we saw lots of new ones -- it's a nice annual tradition in the park downtown.

Now we are nearing the final stretch of completing our theses, which means long hours and getting frustrated at having to go back and re-edit and re-write and cut words and add them and patch holes in arguments and all of the other work to put together an 80,000-word tome. We're not planning other travel or conferences or much of anything to be able to focus on the writing. It will be a challenge for sure.

caught this little critter with its tongue out!

my favorite NZ bird: the tui with two voiceboxes and fun warbles

the very intelligent kea

"Two Gentlemen of Verona" with a swingin' sixties theme

Auckland Zoo

It was pouring rain off and on all night, plus thunder and lightning for good measure. This Airbnb place in Auckland is a bit run-down (no microwave, no frying pan, no seals on the doors, ants in the kitchen, etc.), so that's a bummer. It does have a huge TV though.

We left late to avoid the worst of the rain and spent the day at the Auckland Zoo. They had numerous places where the animals were very close to the walkways, something I'm not used to. Most of them were out and visible. I got to see several more tui birds which are my new favorite (along with the pukeko). In the nocturnal area, I saw the legs of a kiwi bird way at the back of the really dark enclosure. They are really elusive! The big cats were great as always. We saw a bird catch a fish and then down it in a couple chugs. That was a first!

Several displays emphasized how many important discoveries have come from the rainforest and how deforestation is destroying the plants and animals that call it home. Palm oil, in particular, was singled out as something consumers should stop buying. It's in a lot of processed food now (and isn't good for you), but it's hard to get companies to take any responsibility for sustainability. Another reminder of how destructive industrialization has been on our planet...

red panda

kakapo

elephant out for a walk around the zoo

wallabee

some kind of beautiful bird

Tasmanian Devil (looks like a mole)

alligator or crocodile

lemurs taking the sun

meerkat pile

so cute!

tui

takahe

it's about to swallow this fish whole

cheetahs on their "cat condo"

lion has better things to look at than us