These are my birds. Grey-faced petrels have been my birds since my Master’s project was decided on two years ago.

I say my birds. I don’t own them. I feel no sense of ownership of them. If anything, I feel empathy and protectiveness. The first Grey-faced petrel I held was the same age as I was – 23 years old. That’s one hell of an achievement for a bird, but seabirds are remarkably long-lived. Twenty-three years of skimming the oceans, burrowing into deep dark soils and raising wee fluffy chicks. From an evolutionary perspective, that bird has been a lot more successful in 23 years than I have! Grey-faced petrels are wonderful birds to work with.

I love them and marvel at them and have spent a year sharing their lives from courtship to chicks fledged.

I have sat in the dark and heard them crying above, crashing through trees to land at my feet.

I have been bitten and scratched and vomited and shat on by them.

I have searched for chicks in burrows and found bundles of love.

I have searched for chicks in burrows and found dead eggs and nibbled carcasses.

I have watched chicks grow and grow from tiny cute floof to scraggly angry floof to nearly-an-adult, glossy and beautiful.

I have learned so much about them and their lives.

This why I do what I do, and why I am so pleased, so lucky, so grateful to be on this path. I want to know the world. I want to discover as much as I can about ecosystems and the species that call them home. I want to know how we can help, in the face of the damage we’ve wrought.

When you read this, I will have handed in my thesis. I will be gone. I have adventures in store, so this is goodbye for a while. I’ve written this blog once a week – sometimes twice – for nearly four years solid. I’m taking a break, to take more photos, have more adventures, and work on deciding where to go from here. I have a pretty good idea, but it needs a little refining.

E noho rā.

I’ll be back soon.

– Edin