The term Kiwi ingenuity might have been coined for Richard Pearse. While other would-be aviators were yet to leave the ground, he assembled a machine capable of taking to the air using little more than bits and pieces from around his farm. However, he saw the honours for achieving powered flight go to the Wright brothers, while his efforts were ridiculed and his patents ignored.
Less than two kilometres off the west coast of Campbell Island, a 23-hectare rocky islet rises out of the Southern Ocean. Lashed by strong winds and cold rain for most of the year, and typically obscured by cloud, 200 m-high Dent Island is anything but a hospitable environment. Those steep slopes that do not bear the scars of recent erosion are blanketed by tussock grass. There are no trees on this bleak, tooth-shaped rock, and there is little standing water. It is not your average waterfowl habitat, yet Dent Island happens to be the last refuge of the critically endangered flightless Campbell Island teal. About half the weight of a mallard, the teal is primarily a nocturnal bird, with activity peaking at dusk. It is thought that the birds forage amongst decaying seaweed for sandhoppers and other invertebrates. The males have a richly coloured plumage: the head feathers shine with a blue-green iridescence, the breast is chestnut, and finely vermiculated flank feathers lead to a white patch at the base of the tail. Females and juveniles are less flamboyantly attired, in shades of sepia-brown. The flightless characteristic of the Campbell Island teal is shared by three other extant species of duck. The slightly larger Auckland Island teal occupies a similar ecological niche in the Auckland Islands group, and two species of steamer duck, with extensively reduced wings, are found on subantarctic islands in the Magellanic region of South America and on the Falkland Islands (see "Flightless Birds," the poster in New Zealand Geographic, Issue 37). As with flightless birds everywhere, these species are extremely vulnerable to introduced predators—and such is the case on Campbell Island. Albatrosses and penguins, breeding in vast colonies, appear to have coped with the intruders, but smaller burrow-nesting seabirds have struggled, and terrestrial species have stood little chance against the depredations of Norway rats and cats, brought to the island first by sealers and whalers, then by farmers. The teal, a rare snipe, shearwaters, petrels, a distinct race of pipit, a weevil and even a flightless moth have survived only on outlying islets which escaped invasion. The total Campbell Island teal population probably numbers fewer than 25 pairs, and, until recently, Dent Island was the only place they could be found. The Department of Conservation is trying to ensure this severely threatened species does not follow the same path to extinction trodden by so many other native birds over the past thousand years, and to this end has instigated a teal recovery programme. The long-term goal is to restore the species to the whole of Campbell Island, but since the Dent Island population is too fragile to use as a source of birds for translocation, the recovery of the species is dependent on a captive-breeding programme and the successful reintroduction of captive-bred birds into the wild. The first such release occurred in April 1999. Twelve birds were liberated on Codfish Island, a wildlife sanctuary west of Stewart Island, to seed a new wild population. An additional 32 birds are being held in captivity at the Mt Bruce National Wildlife Centre as insurance, should the Dent Island population suffer some unforeseen disaster. The Codfish birds will have the opportunity to develop relevant survival skills in an environment of natural hazards and hardships—skills that will be essential if they are to return to the subantarctic. The ecological requirements of the Campbell Island teal seem to be similar to those of the Auckland Island teal: freshwater habitat with access to shorelines. As well as foraging for crustaceans amongst the piles of kelp that litter the shore, the teal may also associate with burrowing seabird colonies, where insects thrive on the vast quantities of guano. Dent Island is honeycombed with burrows of the white-chinned petrel, also a refugee from main Campbell Island. Codfish Island's burrowing nesters include sooty shearwaters, mottled, Cook's and South Georgian diving petrels and blue penguins. It remains to be seen whether the captive-bred teal find these colonies and tap into their associated food source. It has taken 15 years from the first capture of Campbell Island teal to reach the point of establishing a second wild population. Apart from the problem of finding the reclusive birds on their inhospitable island, the main challenge has been getting them to breed. In 1990, the captive population consisted of seven males and four females. While some of the males proved fertile (they readily paired with females of the Auckland Island teal), the females showed no inclination to engage in any form of nesting activity. The breakthrough came in 1994 when three pairs were flocked in one large aviary and closely monitored for social interactions. (A breeding pair must be separated from other birds, as these highly territorial ducks can fight to the death in a confined territory.) That season, a female finally accepted a mate, constructed a well hidden nest and laid three fertile, buff-coloured eggs, the first Campbell Island teal eggs ever seen. The breeding programme was under way at last. The next step was to pair the other wild-caught birds with captive-bred one-year-olds, to ensure an adequate genetic diversity in the population. This second step has been successful, and now six of the original wild-caught birds are genetically represented in the captive and Codfish Island populations. Each of the teal on Codfish Island wears a radio transmitter. By monitoring the birds' movements, researchers will be able to assess the survival of different age classes and record habitat use. On moonlit evenings, the teal have already been observed exploring the sedge-covered dunes, investigating rocky platforms and tidal zones. At dawn, evidence of their night-time excursions across the beach can be traced in their footprints in the sand—unusually large for such a small, non-diving duck. Birds have climbed steep rock faces, found refuge beneath large piles of driftwood, entered neglected seabird burrows and, most impressively, ventured out to the sea. They are certain to have encountered their first yellow-eyed penguins, as well as a New Zealand sealion attending her pup at Sealers Bay. Adventurous teal, heading upstream, may even find themselves bill to beak with a large, nocturnal, moss-green parrot, for Codfish Island is also kakapo country. The transmitters should enable field staff to locate any nests, but no one is too hopeful at present: it will probably take several releases to establish a self-sustaining population. But optimism is the fuel of any conservation programme, and it has to be for this one. The ecological restoration of 11,268 ha Campbell Island requires the complete eradication of all remaining mammalian predators. (The last of the sheep and cattle were removed earlier this decade, and cats have apparently died out; only those rogue rats remain.) DoC believes it has the technology to make the island predator-free, but it will take time to implement such an enormous, and costly, project. Surely, though, one day next century conservationists will be able to move this smart, hardy little duck back to its former home. Those involved in the project can hardly wait!
Pictures of the Earth's surface are becoming sharper, closer and more informative as imaging technology of ever-increasing sophistication becomes available. America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory OPL) are leaders in imaging technology development for deployment on satellites and spacecraft, and their equipment is extensively tested in the atmosphere before being used in space. In 1996, a DC-8 equipped with NASA's latest imaging equipment flew missions out of Christchurch for three days, collecting radar and optical data from a range of environments. Among the instruments on board was AIRSAR, which stands for Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar. Radar, itself an acronym for Radio Detection And Ranging, was developed to detect hostile aircraft, the first systems becoming operational during World War H. Its transformation into a tool for imaging the land has happened only in the past few decades. Like all radar, SAR works by transmitting brief bursts of microwave-frequency electromagnetic radiation, then receiving and recording the signals that are reflected back, or backscattered—in this case from the landscape. Only a small fraction of the transmitted radiation is reflected back to the antennas—most is scattered in other directions. From an imaging point of view, radar has the advantage over optical techniques that it is unaffected by light, so it can operate by night or day, through cloud, fog, smoke, rain or even volcanic ash. In AIRSAR, some 1500 high-power pulses (each lasting only 10 to 50 millionths of a second) are fired per second, and the reflections from each pulse are received by the antennas before the next pulse is emitted. Although signal waves travel at the speed of light, the time that they take to return can be recorded with sufficient precision to give distance measurements accurate to a metre or two. The longer the antenna (also known as an aperture) used to collect the reflected energy, the finer the resolution of the image. A very long antenna is impractical on an aircraft (or satellite), but SAR can mimic a very long antenna by combining the echoes received by the radar as the plane moves along its flight track. Because the radar is moving relative to the ground, the returning echoes are Doppler-shifted: the echo wavelength is slightly shorter from a target the plane is approaching, longer from one it is moving away from. These subtle variations, when combined with a knowledge of the plane's precise position, allow SAR to obtain data which appear to have been recorded at the same instant with a very long antenna. But there is more to AIRSAR's wizardry. Radar waves are typically emitted from AIRSAR in a polarised form (with all the waves in the same plane) and in phase (with the peaks on every wave aligned). When the beam is reflected back from objects on the ground (rocks, trees, etc), the polarisation and phase will be disturbed, and these changes can be detected by the antennas and associated equipment, then used to provide insight into the ground cover. Different sorts of vegetation have distinct arrangements of their branches and leaves, and so give characteristic polarisation patterns. Pine forests, for instance, look different from beech or podocarp forest. Radar beams of different wavelengths can provide additional information about the Earth's surface and what is on it. This is because shorter wavelengths tend to image smaller objects, longer wavelengths larger. C-band wavelengths (5.6 cm) tend to reflect off the leaves of a tree, L-band wavelengths (24 cm) from twigs and branches, P-band (68 cm) from trunks. Stones on the ground will reflect differently from clay, volcanic ash from mud. All three wavelengths may be used simultaneously on AIRSAR, and all can be polarised. Echoes from each wavelength may be rendered in a different colour in a final image of the terrain. In a further technique termed interferometric SAR, pairs of radar images, collected from two antennas widely spaced on the plane, are combined to derive accurate topographic information. Radar echoes of the same target area probed simultaneously from slightly different positions interfere with each other in ways that are determined by the terrain. Some signals will be reinforced, others cancelled out or attenuated. Untangling this complexity enables topographic maps to be produced from the data. A typical plot would be 12 km by 12 km, with accuracy to 10 m horizontally. In mountain areas, elevations are accurate to five metres; in flatter country, to within one metre. The applications to which AIRSAR images can be put seem almost unlimited. Because different types of vegetation cover can be accurately distinguished, the mapping of land use and vegetation and forest cover is readily accomplished. Deforestation, erosion and damage to wetlands and the like can also be monitored. Soil moisture levels, biomass and even some idea of biodiversity (at least among flora) can be obtained. The speed and direction of ocean currents can be determined, while the smoothness produced by an oil slick on the ocean is readily spotted. Even rock types that vary in their roughness can be mapped, and coarse sediments can be differentiated from fine on a glacial outwash plain. Longer wavelength microwaves do not penetrate just vegetation, but in dry conditions can also pierce a few metres of sand, revealing details of underlying geology and even archaeology. Erupting volcanoes shrouded in ash have been examined by AIRSAR to determine exactly where hazardous streams of molten lava are running. It may even be possible to analyse vegetation beneath the forest canopy. AIRSAR can determine much, but NASA has yet another instrument in its imaging arsenal, MASTER, which stands for (take a deep breath!) Moderate resolution imaging spectrometer and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection radiometer). This instrument images the ground at 50 different wavelengths ranging from 0.4 microns, in the visible-near UV region of the electromagnetic spectrum, up to 13 microns, the region of long-wave infrared waves. The infra-red region of the spectrum is invisible to human eyes, but longer wavelength infra-red is useful for imaging heat. Hence it is valuable for such applications as geothermal field analysis, detecting heat emission near coal mines and determining surface water temperatures. Mid infra-red wavelengths can detect the presence of different minerals in rocks and soil where vegetation cover is scarce. Australian scientists would like to launch a satellite with this type of sensor for mineral exploration. MASTER data is also useful for estimating the concentration of sulphur dioxide in volcanic plumes, for detecting soil moisture variations, the presence of shallow aquifers and also for some geological mapping. Unlike AIRSAR, MASTER depends upon a clear view of the ground, so is unusable in poor visibility. Many New Zealand researchers are keen to see the NASA plane back in our skies. A further mission, codenamed Pacrim 2 and planned for March 2000, will take a broad swing through the Pacific and Asia. If sufficient local interest and funds are available, the aircraft will include New Zealand in its flight path.
Palaeontologically speaking, New Zealand can't boast glamour sites like the Burgess Shale or Dinosaur National Monument. However, we are particularly well endowed with fossiliferous marine sediments, which provide a record of the life and the environmental conditions that have prevailed in our part of the world over the past 500 million years. It is not just the fossils themselves that are significant, but the fact that we have a complete listing of all known fossil localities from which collections have been made. Few other countries have such an inventory, and in this regard New Zealand is the envy of the palaeontological world. The catalogue, called the New Zealand Fossil Record File, is maintained by the Geological Society of New Zealand and the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences. Initiated in 1944 by one of New Zealand's most notable geologists, Harold Wellman (see New Zealand Geographic, Issue 41), it includes about 80,000 entries, and is still growing. The file is in constant use as a database for oil and mineral exploration, research and mapping purposes. Locality CH/f623 on the file is of greater significance than its humble designation suggests, for it was the very first fossil locality in New Zealand to be documented. Surprisingly, it is not one of the many mainland locations at which fossils are abundant, but is in an obscure corner of the country and was made by Johann Karl Ernst Dieffenbach in 1840. Dieffenbach was a German explorer and geographer known for his high humanitarian ideals and his politically liberal views. He had fled Germany as a political refugee in 1836, ultimately reaching London. There he became known in natural history circles, and was recommended to the New Zealand Company by such scientific luminaries as Charles Darwin and Sir Charles Lyell. Dieffenbach was appointed to the position of naturalist to the New Zealand Company in April 1839, at the age of 28, and accompanied Colonel William Wakefield on the Tory, arriving in Queen Charlotte Sound on August 16, 1839. This important voyage of exploration and surveying was the precursor to the establishment of the New Zealand Company colonies. It is likely that Dieffenbach was the first professional scientist to live and work in New Zealand. Between May and July 1840, Dieffenbach visited the Chatham Islands in the Cuba, accompanied by Richard Davies Hanson, whose main objective was to purchase the islands for the New Zealand Company. Dieffenbach is remembered in the landscape. Mount Dieffenbach, or Hemokawa, is a prominent hill rising 134 m above sea level—one of 15 small volcanic centres that dominate the otherwise low, flat landscape of northern Chatham Island. It was during his time in northern Chatham Island that Dieffenbach recorded fossils. He gives a detailed description of observations made along Tumaio Beach, to the east of Tioriori, noting "a dark green friable sand," above which lay "a horizontal bed, from half a foot to a foot [15-30 cm] thick, of broken decomposed shells of the oyster and nautilus tribe." On the modem geological map of Chatham Island, the "green friable sand" is called the Tutuiri Greensand, and the "bed of broken decomposed shells" the Tumaio Limestone. The fossils in these sediments indicate an early Eocene age, 53-55 million years old. Dieffenbach left New Zealand in October 1841 and returned to England with his collections, including the fossils he had collected at Tioriori. Two species of oyster were subsequently recorded from the location. For much of the last century and a half, Dieffenbach's fossil locality has been hidden from view, buried under drifting dune sand. Then, in 1997, the sands dispersed and the site was able to be studied afresh. We now know that the Tumaio Limestone contains a number of species of bryozoans, corals, brachiopods, bivalves, gastropods and echinoderms. About 75 species of foraminifera have also been identified. No nautiloid fossils have been recovered—despite Dieffenbach's claim. The deposit is the remnant of a blanket of limestone which covered the entire Chatham Islands area 55 to 50 million years ago. Perhaps the most spectacular expression of this limestone is the cuffed western shore of Te Whanga Lagoon, the great central lagoon on Chatham Island. The cliffs here are entirely made up of the skeletal remains of marine animals and plants that thrived in water depths of 150 m to 250 m. During the Eocene the Chathams were truly oceanic, and totally submerged but for a few volcanic islets. Though extremely abundant, the fossil materials that make up the limestone are generally fragmented, and are derived from mainly small, inconspicuous plankton, various kinds of seaweed and sea urchins. Shelly fossils such as molluscs, brachiopods and barnacles are rather uncommon. The most prized fossils are the teeth of a giant prehistoric shark, Carcharadon, which may have reached 16 m in length. The limestone is of particular interest to palaeontologists partly because it is so fossil-rich, but also because limestone of Eocene age is not known from mainland New Zealand. However, it is known from exploratory drillholes and dredge samples on the Chatham Rise, a broad submarine ridge that extends for over 1000 km due east of Banks Peninsula and reaches to within about 400 m of the surface along its crest. In a sense, the Chatham Islands are a window through which we can observe and sample the geology of the vast Chatham Rise. Today, the Rise is immensely important to New Zealand's fishing industry, and is rich in mineral resources. Around 100 million years ago, however, there was continuous land along the Chatham Rise, with mountains, forests, rivers and, no doubt, dinosaurs. All was to change, though, and between 100 and 55 million years ago the New Zealand continent gently subsided with respect to the Earth's surface, and much of it was submerged beneath the waves. Dieffenbach's site was down there, too, receiving the gentle rain of biogenic calcium carbonate that would one day attract the roving explorer's eye. As you watch the millennial sunrise over Pitt Island, spare a thought for the ups and downs of the land, and of the fossil bed that was lost and then found.
Biodiversity, a word coined only two decades ago, has become a hot topic in science and society, as humans ponder how to stem the continuing depletion of the world's biological heritage. Over every consideration of biodiversity hangs the shadow of extinction, the threat that stalks all living species—the biological "end of the line." Yet extinction has played a strangely formative role in forging the diversity of life, as Richard Holdaway, a Christchurch palaeobiologist, explains . . .
Were it not for the Poet's Bridge, you might think that Simon Hadlow was rowing his daughter and dog into the backblocks. Yet this arcadian vista lies just a few minutes' stroll from downtown New Plymouth, in a park which provides forest, laws, sports-ground, gardens, performance facilities and a peaceful retreat in the centre of the city.
There is nothing like boat speed to win a yacht race, but if two boats are well matched, then knowing what the weather is about to do can give one a decisive edge. One way to anticipate wind changes coming towards you is by observing their effect on the water. At the beginning of the round robin races for the Louis Vuitton Cup off San Diego four years ago, Team New Zealand actually hoisted crewman Murray Jones up the mast to get a better view of wind shifts on the horizon. This tactic worked so well that the other syndicates protested on the grounds that it was an unsafe practice. The protest was successful, but may have been motivated by the likelihood that the other teams had no one capable of spending an entire race dangling from a rope 30 m above sea level. Even better than reading wind changes on the water is knowing ahead of time what to expect, and this is where weather forecasters come in. The 1968 Olympics in Mexico marked a turning point for meteorology when the English yachting team took a forecaster to Acapulco with them. Over the weeks leading up to the competition he released dozens of balloons over the course and tracked floating spars in the water to build up a picture of the local wind patterns and ocean currents. He found, for example, that outflow from a nearby river caused a layer of fresh water to lie on top of the salt water, and it sometimes covered part of the race course. When the wind blew, the fresh water slid across the top of the salt water in the same direction as the wind. (Normally surface water moves at a considerable angle to the wind, because of friction connecting it with water deeper down.) In the lead-up to the competition the Mexican weather gods, perhaps flattered by all the attention the weather was getting, bestowed a rare phenomenon on the English yachtsmen: a shower of maggots, apparently scooped up from the ground further inland by a small tornado and dropped over the beach. (The name of one of these gods, Huracan, has passed into English as the name for an intense tropical cyclone over the Atlantic. It is one of only two words in the English language derived from the Mayan language; the other is "shark.") During racing, the English yachtsmen took advantage of their new knowledge (but not the maggots), getting on or off the fresh-water layer, which they recognised by its colour, depending on whether it helped or hindered them. Their team did well, winning a gold and a bronze medal. Since then, weather forecasters have been a regular feature of Olympic yachting. The expected weather conditions for regattas such as the Louis Vuitton and America's Cups also play a big part in the design specifications for the yachts involved. Off Fremantle in 1987, the south-westerlies often rose above 20 knots and whipped up large waves. The sails and fittings of the yachts had to be robust enough to withstand these conditions. The strength of the south-westerlies is influenced by the intensity of the daytime heating of the land. As summer progressed, the afternoon temperatures increased, and so did the strength of the southwesterlies. Dennis Conner's yacht had been designed to perform best in strong winds, and this gave him the edge in the finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup, when he defeated New Zealand's KZ7, which had won 41 races and lost only once before then. Off San Diego, the winds were much lighter, with speeds averaging around 10 knots. Consequently, the yachts were not built to sail in strong winds, and when they did, disaster struck. On March 5, 1995, OneAtistralia broke in two and sank when racing against New Zealand's Black Magic II in over 20 knots of wind. Black Magic II also sustained damage, and might well have lost its mast had it continued to race. Both teams had questioned the decision of the organising committee to race in those conditions, as had the French team, but had been overruled. What conditions are likely off Auckland's North Shore for the America's Cup this time? Well, for one thing, there is likely to be more variety than either San Diego or Fremantle offers. Wind speeds in the Hauraki Gulf often get up to around 20 knots, but can be less than 10 knots. Nor can we rule out the possibility of a visit from the remains of a tropical cyclone, such as Fergus, which brought winds in excess of 50 knots to the gulf in December 1996. The wind can blow from all directions in the gulf, depending on the pattern of the isobars, although most of the time it is either southwest or north-east. In an El Nino summer southwesterlies occur more frequently, while in a La Nina summer north-easterlies are more likely. North-east winds typically result from a slow-moving high to the east of the country extending a ridge of high pressure over the North Island, with the axis of the ridge lying to the south of Auckland. Over the Hauraki Gulf, the resulting north-easterly can often rise to 20 knots in the afternoon, gusting even higher. When a stationary high lies to the west of the North Island, extending a ridge to a slow-moving high east of the country, and with the axis of the ridge lying to the north of Auckland, the day can often start with a light easterly which then peters out, allowing a southwesterly to break through in the afternoon. The south-westerly is sometimes helped along by the formation of an area of low pressure east of the main ranges, known as a lee trough. The trough is partly caused by the mountains blocking the stable air in the high, but is intensified by daytime heating over the land, which lowers the pressure further. Days like this provide the most fun for forecasters, as picking the strength and timing of the south-west change can be quite tricky. Given that below-average sea-surface temperatures are continuing over the central and eastern parts of the Tropical Pacific Ocean, forecasters are expecting another La Nifia this summer. If this prediction works out, it will be the first time in over 20 years that the Pacific has experienced back-to-back La Nifias, and may indicate a long-term shift in the behaviour of the El Nifio-Southern Oscillation weather pattern. Over the Hauraki Gulf, this should mean frequent north-east winds and therefore waves bigger than average, as the north-east wind has a greater fetch over the water before reaching the race course than the south-westerly does. Between the design of the yacht and the tactics on the water, there are other weather decisions to be made. Not all the sails a syndicate has at its disposal can be carried on the yacht at any one time. In the hours leading up to the race a team has to choose which sails to leave on shore for the day, based on the weather conditions forecast for the race. An error of just a few knots in the forecast wind speed can result in the wrong sails being on board. In 1992, when New Zealand's NZL-20 lost the Louis Vuitton Cup to Paul Cayard on the Italian boat 11 Moro, NZL-20 won only the first race of the finals. Cayard's excuse for losing on that day was that he had misread conditions and used the wrong sails. Getting the forecast right will be an important part of the jigsaw that the winning team will have to put together. Most of the syndicates have their own forecasters, who will seek to predict wind strengths to the nearest knot or two over the race course. Team New Zealand is sticking with American Bob Rice, who served them so well last time in San Diego. AmericaOne has ace Australian forecaster Roger "Clouds" Badham, who accurately predicted the carnage that befell the last Sydney-Hobart race in Bass Strait before the yachts had cleared Sydney Harbour. America True has John Crouch, and the Italian team, Prada, has Doug Charko, both locally based forecasters with many years of experience. For me, part of the enjoyment of this summer's racing is going to be watching the battle of the forecasters. But I wish on none of them the experience of Mighty Mai), in the final race of the defenders series in 1995. Rounding the last buoy 44 boat lengths ahead of Dennis Conner's Stars and Stripes, Mary headed for the finish line and the apparent certainty of sailing against Black Magic for the America's Cup. When Conner's boat rounded the buoy, he headed off in a different direction, gambling on a new breeze. He got his wind change, and it blew him to victory in one of the greatest catch-ups in America's Cup history.
John Crook is a farmer who has spent all his 73 years on the family farm at Maungatautari Mountain in the Waikato. Here he reflects on the trials and tribulations of raising hogs.
Nestled among the eastern ranges of the Southern Alps, an hour's drive from Christchurch, lies a gentle basin bulging with huge boulders and rock outcrops. The area, known as Castle Hill or Kura Tawhiti, is a Mecca for rockclimbers and skiers, but long before Europeans and their sheep appeared, Maori appreciated that the place had a special magic—one that not even the snows of winter could shroud.
David Burrell—affectionately known as Dr Buzz—is a partner in the two-doctor practice that brings medical care to the people of Reefton and the surrounding area of the West Coast. The Coast may be a stunning place to live and raise a family, but the benefits of country living barely compensate for the crushing workload Buzz Burrell—and other rural GPs—have to cope with.
The islands of the Pacific are as renowned for their exotic cultures as for their sapphire lagoons and coral reefs. Part of the islands' distinctive flavour comes from the amalgamation of colonial influences with time-honoured practices, and nowhere is this meeting of worlds more visible than in an architecture which blends modern and traditional materials, techniques and design concepts. In his recently published book Pacific Island Style (from which the pictures on the following pages are reprinted), Auckland photographer Glenn Jowitt documents the diversity of island buildings.
Despite its bristling armoury, the nosy, bumbling hedgehog is among the most endearing of animals. Generations of children, charmed by Beatrix Potter's kindly washerwoman, Mrs Tiggy-winkle, have taken an interest in her real-life kin and their shy, snuffling ways. And, on a more pragmatic level, their appetite for slugs and snails makes hedgehogs one of the few nocturnal visitors we welcome to our gardens.
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