Best birthday, hands down

Photo taken by Edin from the Mokohinau Islands Lighthouse, just above the field station on the top of this very hilly island.

Out to the Mokes

Landing on Burgess Island

A post shared by Abby McBride (@sketchbiologist) on Sep 13, 2017 at 2:13pm PDT

First expedition in New Zealand, out to the beautiful Mokohinau Islands.

Scribble map

I had to draw one of my signature Highly Inaccurate Sketch Maps to start getting my bearings for New Zealand. The yellow scribble is by my two-year-old niece but all of the other scribbles are by me.

A post shared by Abby McBride (@sketchbiologist) on Aug 24, 2017 at 8:01am PDT

Zee and the Storm-Petrel

Zee will be lying low in the coming months, while I head to New Zealand to sketch seabirds for a Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship. (See more Adventures of Zee.)

Here's one last sighting of Zee with the long-lost New Zealand Storm-Petrel. This little seabird, thought to be extinct for the entire 20th century, was recently found nesting on an island just 50 miles from New Zealand's biggest city.

The storm-petrel's tenuous recovery depends on ongoing conservation efforts, including constant vigilance to keep invasive cats and rats away from its breeding grounds.

Stay tuned to learn more about this storm-petrel and other seabirds of New Zealand, appropriately known as the "seabird capital of the world" (and as a global leader in saving these very important, very endangered animals!).

Endangered Not-a-Seagull

World's most endangered gull, found only in New Zealand (Black-billed Gull)

A post shared by Abby McBride (@sketchbiologist) on Jul 25, 2017 at 8:04pm PDT

This endangered black-billed gull debuted in my 2012 graduate thesis, titled “Don't Call It a Seagull," but is now a fitting ambassador for my next project on New Zealand seabird conservation.