Follow up to visit

Time for Thinking.
Hopefully you can answer these questions  now room three.
Can you name  these animals and why are they so important ?

Something to think about.

How can you help us keep our skinks safe?

Room 3's visit to Landcare.

What a great afternoon Grant and I had showing room 3 the skinks and geckos,

Grant said what a lovely class you are and I said yes of course they are Mrs Wright can be very proud of you.

I hoe you had as much fun as we did and learnt lots as as well.

I hope you can identify some of  the Otago skinks from the photos  back at school.

 

November update.

Well done Mrs.Wright and Room 3 for the wonderful Gecko Rocks you painted and sold at the fair they look fantastic and are a great way of  making people aware of how special these creatures are to our environment.

One of your rocks acts as a  welcome to people as when they visit the offices of Landcare Research here in Alexandra so when you come for a visit you can see it yourself.

What's been happening lately?

We have identified 3 new Otago skinks which we named Marcus, Jeremy ( after Mr. Norbury's sons ) and Ross  named after my youngest son who has been helping me take photos sometimes.

Marcus

Jeremy

Ross




I have just finished checking under these artificial covers to do a gecko count.

Here are two questions for you to think about  and have some answers ready for me when you come to visit.

What  science is happening in these pictures and why do you think we are doing this?

HINT look carefully at the detail in each picture

 

Feeding the skinks.

Big thank you to Room 3 for gathering up  some  worms  to feed the skinks.

They love eating worms!

What detail can you see that may help scientists identify each skink?

They can'y wait to grab that worm!

Camera Trapping

Science is not always straight forward it is about trying things out and overcoming problems.
Over the last few weeks I have been conducting some trials to see if
we  capture lizards on  remote cameras.
We have had to overcome the problem that the remote cameras are set up to pick up movement of animals based on infrared rays. That is the camera uses heat and movement however reptiles are cold blooded
 therefore  the infrared sensor may not always work.
How do we overcome this problem?
Firstly we have to wait to the sun comes out so the skinks can warm up then the camera may be able to pick them up.
We set up a trial to see  what would happen.


In the picture you may notice some boards these are so that there to make it easier to pick up the skinks as they are hard to pick up against a dirt background

However then we came across another problem - that the wind may be setting of the camera not the skinks.

So how do you think we overcame this problem?

What did we find?
So far the results are not conclusive we are getting some pictures of the skinks but not on a regular basis. For example when its a cloudy day  we didn't get any pictures.

If anyone has any ideas about how we could capture lizards especially skinks on a remote camera please get in touch.jeremyhogue32@gmail.com 
or leave a comment on this site.
Thanks David for your comment- and yes we have thought about  setting it to time lapse however we will use this option only if we have to - we are trying to avoid having to trawl through thousands of photos.


This is what the camera looks like when set up in the field.

What other skinks live in Central Otago?

Photo evidence of other skinks present at  Mokoko sanctuary.

What do you think it is doing?

Find out more about them  from the links below. below.

http://skinks.wikispaces.com/McCann's+Skinks

Can you spot  it ?

It is a McCann skink..

 http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/13521/skinks

As a scientist( apprentice  ) it is important to find out about what other scientists may be doing  as well.

A past Science Teaching fellow   Hermann Frank  has been doing some great work in South Canterbury  helping to protect our Native lizards.
Listen to the story on http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/20110316
He has also raising awareness of the importance of stone rows(below)  on the Canterbury plains as residual lizard habitat, and bringing Fonterra’s attention to the ways that dairy developments can work to minimise their impacts on these.         Thank you  Hermann for helping protect our native reptiles.

Housing skinks

Housing the skinks 

What detail can you see?
 What are the purposes of these pipes ?

Taking photos of the skinks in the Eco sanctuary for purposes of identification.