Local friends

One of the fun things about still having so much sea ice around for the first few weeks here is that there were seals hanging out and about. With their babies!

Our most ubiquitous animal friends are sheathbills, very curious, white birds that hang out with us almost all the time, will eat anything we let them (from the cover of the hot tub to our poop as it comes out of the station outfall pipe), and leave their adorable footprints everywhere.

They tend to pair up and (at least when they have not been hanging out by the outfall and are wearing that evidence on their feathers) can be quite adorable as they bob around station, checking out all the action and bobbing their heads around everywhere.

Once the sea ice broke up a bit, the animal visits to station multiplied exponentially. Penguins started hopping up on the rocks down by the pier to hang out for a bit...

...a baby elephant seal decided the side of the boat house was fantastic place to rest for a weekend...

...and some sea stars were visible alongside the dock ramp.

I have to admit, predictable as it is, the penguins are my favorite. They are just so endlessly entertaining to watch. The way they move is so funny and endearing and awkward, and they just seem so cheerful and optimistic. I just love it.

Animal crossings

Aside from the gorgeous scenery, of course (and the opportunity to catch up on a lot of backlogged NPR podcasts as we went), one of the most fun things about the enormous amount of driving that we did through the states of New South Wales and Victoria during the first week of the trip was all of the road signs we got to see that you would never get to see in North America. In particular, the wildlife awareness signs. We were warned to watch out for...

 

WOMBATS!:

 

EMUS!:

KANGAROOS!:

And, too cute, KOALAS!:

Sadly, during our meandering drive from Sydney to Melbourne, the only specimens of these animals that we saw were kangaroo and wombat road kill. No pictures taken of that, obviously. But just you wait. Live examples of nearly all these and more will be making appearances in the coming posts....

Critters

Even when you're inside in a tropical climate, you're still pretty much outside. All sorts of critters have been a big part of our lives here. There are a couple of huge toads that come to visit us in our open-air yoga practice space every night, especially when it's windy and they're trying to get some shelter behind the support beams. Geckos everywhere. Monkeys in the trees all around the property; they love to hoot and holler at the end of our practices, for some reason. One morning, our animal-loving instructor had to kill a scorpion as big as her hand that was determined to rush toward the head of one of my fellow students as she was in her final resting pose oblivious to the danger. I also found a smaller scorpion in our bathroom one night, but failed to get a picture. Hopefully there will be more critter pics to come as I travel around Nicaragua a bit more in February, but here you go, for now. Oh, and sorry about the jackhammer in the background of the video. The non-jackhammer sound is the sound of the monkeys.