Backtramping

Just rewinding slightly, the bird enthusiasts amongst my readers may have wondered why our accommodation in the Kaikoura mountains was called Shearwater Lodge. The answer is that one of the only 2 remaining colonies of Hutton's Shearwaters can be found on Nicky MacArthur's land.
For the uninitiated, Shearwaters are birds designed to live their lives at sea. They are very clumsy on land but are obliged to come in to nest.
On Skomer Island off the coast of Pembrokeshire they lay their single eggs in burrows under ground, leave their chicks there alone all day and return from the sea at dead of night to feed their offspring in an attempt to avoid predators, especially the big Black-backed Gulls.
The Hutton Shearwaters behave in the same way but lay their eggs in holes up in the mountain. Nicky and her helpers lay traps around the colony to catch predatory stoats and rats.