...and sometimes it really doesn't.
Okay, so going in and out of quarantine forty-seven times started to get just a little bit tedious, and the seventeen-hour work day did begin to get a tiny bit long by the end of it, however when it involves coming here..
...and meeting these guys..
...you tend to suck it in and thank your lucky stars.
I have to say the Takahe were really cool. They were originally thought to be extinct, but were rediscovered in the 1940s. Today there are 225 of them surviving in New Zealand. They reckon numbers have slowly whittled away due to loss of habitat and introduced predators. But I reckon they only have themselves to blame for their demise - I mean look at them, they look so goddamned tasty.
There are twelve Takahe on the island, and we got to meet five of them. They would saunter over and say hi. Yesterday when I told my niece that I had met a blue bird with red lipstick and red stockings and shoes, I don't think she could decide whether I was telling the truth or mixing my meds.
While I had an enormous amount of time for the Takahe, I didn't find the brown frog quite so captivating. They were small, brown, nocturnal, looked like, well, bark and didn't actually appear to be that bright. 
'FROG ON THE TRACK!'
'Where?'
'Just where you are about to put your left foot!'
'But that's just a piece of bark - oh.'
Walk, walk, wal-
'FROG ON THE TRACK!'
'Huh?'
'Just up to your right.'
'You'd think if they had any sense of self preservation, they'd leapfrog their little brown butts out of the way, if I can't see them, how can I know not to stand on them?'
And in one sentence I effectively alienated myself from all the frog lovers around me (but possibly not quite as badly as one of the bods on my team being overheard suggesting that a basil and pine nut stuffing would go really well with roast Takahe.)
7 comments:
Can I suggest:
Slow roasted over an open fire, rosemary, whole peppercorns and garlic infused through cuts in to the thighs............. or so someone told me one day.
XChequer
http://www.thenzhomeoffice.blogspot.com/
My point exactly! Ten bucks says no one has a tasty frog recipe lurking in the recipe section of their brain.
Hang on, ehh, no.
I'd imagine frog to be pretty chewy for some reason-yuck.
The Takahe look cool, are they related to the Kiwi bird in any way? They look like they have a similar kind of body but a bit more colourful :) Cute!
If they farmed Kiwis and you could get them in your local supermarket freezer would you try them? How about a tiny little number 7?
Well, if creatures tasted anything like their temperament, they'd taste awful, they're cantankerous little fuckers.
I was once on a job that involved filming the relocation of kiwi from an island back to the mainland and it included a six hour drive in the height of summer.We were asked if we wanted to take one of the kiwi with us, (i.e it was a bit of an honour to be asked). I declined, my reason being that, national icon or not,they were still a terrified, shitting bird that we were going to have to share the same air with for six hours. And I really couldn't see any fun in that.
Whoopsadaisy, no they're not related, but they are similar shaped, aren't they?
They're way cooler than the kiwi, kiwi are nocturnal, incredibly territorial, and generally really grumpy. These guys were inquisitive and cool.
Post a Comment