Becoming the Brave Little Tailor

When you spend the majority of your working hours without any interaction with other people, you are bound to develop a strange fixation or two. My current focus (I won't go so far as to call it an obsession - I'm not there yet!!) is on becoming like the Brave Little Tailor: "seven with one blow."

Over the last week that I've been out and about looking for harrier, I've had a rather pleasing hit rate: at least one a day, every day I've been out. Which, admittedly, is a great result, however I'm waiting for the day when I can proudly say I've seen seven different harrier all in the space of that one day. So far my total has been three. (Almost half-way!)

Of course, it's not a competition. And even if it was, I'd be the only competitor. As I gain more knowledge of the types of habitat in which these hawks may be found, it would be easy for me to skew the results in my favour. But I won't. I want my genuine Brave Little Tailor moment. I may not sew it on a belt and parade around the town seeking fame and fortune, but I'll be mightily chuffed all the same.

The Little Engine That Could: Perseverance

Child-like enthusiasm is a wonderful thing; it binds you up and carries you along on a terrific high, but the tiniest factor can cause it to fragment and fall apart. Case in point: one child I taught was writing the most fantastic narrative, complete with incredible drawings (he was ridiculously talented in creative areas), but upon realising he'd made a mistake, screwed the whole thing up into the tightest ball imaginable and tossed it into the paper recycling. He then sat immobile, staring despondently at his empty desk for quite some time.

Never a fan of sulking or such-like, I pulled it out of the bin and made him articulate exactly what had gone wrong and we problem-solved a way to fix the error. (He didn't want to then start all over again; turns out I'm a dab hand at ironing creases out of paper!!)

In teaching, we often have moments or situations that stay with us, that stick out beyond the normal day to day happenings (although there is hardly much room for normalcy) and teaching a child perseverance is no mean feat.

Perseverance plays a large part in the success of my project. I get up in the morning. I prepare and plan. I'm ready. I arrive at my first site and wait, full of joyful expectancy, for a harrier to arrive. As the day goes on, the expectancy stays though the joy tends to slip a little. I sit through hours of: cold, sun, wind, mosquitos, sandflies ... all with the hope of being rewarded. Some days I see a harrier, some days I don't.

When I do sight one the joy comes rushing back, a huge wave of it, that makes me want to grab the nearest person, shove my binoculars in their face and shout "Look! Look!" (I have so far managed to practice restraint in this area, safe to let that response live only in my head!)

Perseverance can be a real pain. If the end-point becomes obscure, if things turn to custard, if you make a mistake, if it's taking too long ... there are so many ready excuses to give up. But if you don't give up, if you persevere, nothing beats that feeling of success, pride and self-belief. It tops up the tank and renews you for the next round.

The once-screwed-up-but-now-ironed-out-and-completed story?? It was finished and proudly presented to his grandmother for her birthday.

Me and my harriers? We're doing just fine.

Raptorphilia

New Zealand is not typically known for its raptors, or birds of prey. We have morepork and harrier, which are native (found in other countries as well) and our New Zealand falcon, which is our only endemic bird of prey.

One of the best places to see all three of our raptors close up is Wingspan in Rotorua. Wingspan is a trust that was set up to "care for sick, orphaned and injured raptors. This includes research into their habits and habitat, captive breeding, public awareness and the rehabilitation of raptors back into the wild."

I went down there earlier this week, with some colleagues from the Department of Natural Sciences at Unitec. Now, I've seen countless harrier and morepork before, but have never seen

a New Zealand falcon. It was a new trip for all of us, and we did wonder exactly what would greet us. Just in case we didn't end up getting close to them, I took this photo opportunity:

A 'falcon' of sorts ...

Which turned out to be totally unnecessary. Wingspan has a large barn area that is divided up into about a dozen aviaries that visitors can wander through. Here we saw adult falcons, a juvenile falcon, adult and juvenile moreporks and an elderly gent of a harrier. They were easy to see in their homes; some of the more curious falcons came right up and perched next to the viewing screens.

As harrier age, their colouring gets lighter.

After feasting our eyes and taking many photos (well, my companions did, thanks guys!), we went outside to continue this with the flying demonstration. A male falcon called Ozzy was the first bird brought out. He was very well-behaved, showing us all manner of flying and hunting techniques.

Medieval falconry techniques are still used today in the rehabilitation of injured raptors.

Next came Atareta, a female who was bigger and far more brazen than her male counterpart. She had clever ways of making sure her handler gave her the food she wanted (pigeon or chicken was preferred to rabbit).

Female falcons can be up to one and a half times larger than males.

The demonstration was accompanied by insightful, fact-loaded but easy to understand commentary, which left viewers with a clear understanding of these incredible birds, and apart from being their advocates, I'm sure all who were there now desire to become falconers! Noel, Debbie, Andrew and the team at Wingspan are very passionate and have phenomenal amounts of expertise and knowledge to draw on.

I'm so pleased we made the trip. It has been beneficial to my project in many ways: creating contacts within the raptor realm, fleshing out my knowledge of birds of prey and just having a chance to see these birds close up.

Observation Area: visual reference

Forgiving the scribbly-ness of the red boundary line, this is the area that I am wishing to collect harrier sighting data in. The line is not exact (area extends a little further north and a little further south), but hopefully gives a clear enough idea of the area under scrutiny.

Defining urban:

For the purposes of this study, I will be using a general 'farmland' rule: if there is farmland or lifestyle blocks in the vicinity, or that have been passed through to get there, then that location is not urban. If you're unsure, send the sighting through anyway:

mgalbraith2@unitec.ac.nz

I've started to receive sighting and location info from lots of people, so thanks everyone for the email jungle vine; keep it up!

"Help Wanted"

So Harrier HQ is now set-up and ready to take sightings from one and all. Emails have been sent and sent and sent, which I greatly appreciate. Here's a snippet from my appeal, please pass it on as much as you like!

2010: Year of the Harrier

As you may be aware, I'm undertaking a project (courtesy of a RSNZ Awarded Teacher Fellowship) with the rather large aim of identifying the distribution of the Australasian Harrier within urban Auckland (amongst other things). However, to do this, I need your help. You too can become an avid sky-watcher ... without having to actually go out of your way.

So basically, if you see a harrier over an urban area in Auckland any time throughout the year, I NEED to know. "But I don't know how to tell if it is one or not!" Rubbish - just use the quick 'how to spot a harrier' guide below.

Then, email me with as much info about the sighting as possible, include: date, time, weather conditions (sunny, overcast, rainy, windy), specific location (be really detailed - I need to map this), what the bird was doing, direction it came from or flew off in. All of this information is helpful and will be gratefully received.

Please forward this email to HEAPS of other people, too. The more, the absolute merrier (and the better data for me to work with). Every single sighting helps ... and better yet, it's painless!

Sightings can be sent to me at harrier HQ via this address: mgalbraith2@unitec.ac.nz

How to Spot a Harrier:

• Firstly, look at the shape of the bird first - is it large and brownish, with 'fingered' wings? If so, it's probably a harrier
• Secondly, look at its flying habits - is it soaring in slow circles, or quartering (flying backwards and forwards) a certain area with slow, steady flight? It's most probably a harrier. Harriers use the wind currents to move them about, so they hardly seem to flap their wings at all. Therefore, if you see a large bird flapping madly about, it will probably not be a harrier!
• Thirdly, harriers are solitary and mostly silent, only vocalising around breeding season. So match this with the above characteristics and you'll be able to guarantee the accuracy of your observation.
• Easy!

Thanks everyone :o)

Lessons in patience

Ahhhh, fieldwork. Fieldwork in the realm of ecology, no less. You get all geared up, travel to location, find your optimum vantage point, set up telescope, adjust binoculars, have data recording sheet ready .... and .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... nothing.

"If you build it, they will come." Nice guarantee, that. Unless they're an actual animal species and not ghosts in a movie. What you are guaranteed is a LOT of weird looks from passersby, completely unknown members of the public stopping to chat about what you're doing ("so you're a bird-watcher then?") and a lot of time sitting, waiting.

Patience can feel so different depending on context: in a classroom helping a little 7 year old sound out a word (whilst, at times, feeling like forever) takes 1-2 minutes; sitting waiting for a bird to show (or not) takes hours. Hours.

BUT ... patience is a virtue, my first harrier sightings for this project have been recorded and reports from other people are starting to trickle in, so my minor panic that they all have fled upon learning of my study is over. Phew!

It will take a while to build up the kind of data that I'm hoping to collect, so in the meantime I'll sit back, relax and try to enjoy the views. And as a friend and colleague suggested, I'll "take a good book!"

And so it starts

Okay, so today finds me at the end of my first week of non-teaching. How do I feel? Strange. So much 'newness' to be discovered.

Firstly, it's quiet. I mean, dead quiet. There are no young kiddies scrambling every which way for my attention, there's no playground duty, no bells going, it's quiet. This may be because, in actual fact, there are no kids. A whole day can pass by where I don't encounter a single person younger than me. I never knew this kind of world existed.

Secondly, as much as I felt being a teacher and running my own classroom automatically created work independence, it actually was only because of the nice fluffy encapsulating boundaries of student needs and curriculum choices. When studying in ecology, you're dealing with species in the wild and the subsequent huge degrees of unpredictability that this generates; it's like being taken blindfolded on a trust game, except that my guiding partner happens to be a feathery expert hunter, with rather large talons.

Thirdly: time. Time itself is a marvellous thing. Who ever knew there was so much of it to be had. On my first day, I was finished and home by 3pm. 3pm!!! I really did feel quite unsettled. Seriously, what do people do at 3pm? A teacher's work-day doesn't usually end until at least 5-5.30pm, not to mention the planning and prep we do after dinner, so this whole having extra time thing is a novelty that I have only just started to explore.

So, 3 and a half days into the academic year, I think I'm qualified to say that this teacher fellowship thing rocks! I'm looking forward to a year of peace and solitude, adult company, pursuit of knowledge and having the time to enjoy all this. For any kiwi teachers reading, if even one of these aspects appeals to you, it's time to apply for a Royal Society of New Zealand Awarded Teacher Fellowship. So far, it's all it promises and much more.