Nicola Vallance says she's the sort of person to best avoid at a dinner party.
Sit next to her and you risk a lengthy one-sided chat about various strains of wildlife, none of which are likely to be consumed that evening.
She admits she hasn't grown up.
The passion for the natural world she exhibited as a child remains strong.
She also likes to talk which, in combination with a "bolshie" streak, provides her with a good base of skills for her job as national media manager for the Department of Conservation.
The theme for Doc's Conservation Week (September 7-14) is Meet The Locals, the same title as the 152-part 10-minute-show series Ms Vallance has written, produced and presented in collaboration with TVNZ and which went to air on September 30, 2007.
Parties are discussing a second series, she confirms.
"Sometimes people think conservation is something that happens out the back of beyond, and that if you live in a city it is something you can't relate to. So Meet The Locals is about getting New Zealanders to think about what might just be in their backyard," Ms Vallance says via telephone from her Wellington office.
"I woke up this morning and my kowhai tree is blooming and I have tui and a kereru (New Zealand pigeon) in it. People can relate to that and aren't afraid of that.
"Eighty-five percent of people live in an urban landscape and some of our research suggests some people aren't that sure of the outdoors, so this is about saying it's right in front of you and it belongs to you.
"There is a lot of good stuff happening out there and it doesn't take much to lift the lid off and see. That's the thing about Meet The Locals: it doesn't necessarily have to be about local wildlife.
"It might be about joining your local mountainbike club or getting involved with your local stream-care group or it might be as simple as learning what the trees are in your backyard."
The television series, "done on the smell of an oily rag", took roughly a year to complete.
Contacted by TVNZ in May 2007, following her regular appearances on TV One's Good Morning show, where she presents a segment titled What's Up DoC, she started filming Meet the Locals five weeks later.
Ms Vallance has had to learn how to quell her wide-eyed wonder in order to present the relevant information.
She admits it hasn't been easy.
"There are quite a few episodes where I'm dealing with things I've never seen before. The first time I see a kakapo, I nearly explode; I just can't believe this is going to happen.
"In another episode, I get to sit in a gorse paddock in Waikato where the only Mahoenui giant weta are found. I remember studying that at school. In the 1960s a farmer found this species of giant weta and they were protected because predators couldn't get into the gorse . . .
"There are moments like that when I honestly forget the camera is there. I am just so excited and blown away.
"The consequence of that is I have become incredibly boring at dinner parties. 'Oh God, she's going to talk about that bloody weta again'. People quietly shuffle out of the room."
Born in Invercargill, Ms Vallance has spent much of her life in the South Island.
Mossburn, Mt Cook Village, Twizel and then Rangiora were home before she headed to Dunedin in the late '90s to study at the University of Otago, where she gained a first-class honours degree in zoology, a post-graduate diploma in natural history film-making and a nearly completed law degree.
She held down a variety of jobs (swimming instructor for a Hector's dolphin tourism operation in Akaroa; camera operator for Dunedin's Channel 9 television station; advertising sales consultant for the Otago Daily Times) before being appointed community relations officer for Doc's Otago branch in January 2003.
Eight months after taking her post at the Otago conservancy, Ms Vallance began writing a regular feature column for the Otago Daily Times.
"Naturally Otago" first appeared in August 2003 and ran for more than two years, covering a broad range of topics, from skinks and southern right whales to the inhabitants of Dunedin's town belt and the tussocks of Central Otago.
The column provided her with a forum in which she could bridge her own passion with a more educational approach.
"I've never been a journalist so I'm not sure what skills I've got in that domain. I'm good at fighting," she says, laughing, "but the chewing-down of science is the most important part of my job.
"I'm a scientist by trade and I get really frustrated when I see scientists on television or in the media. I know they're passionate about their work and I know what they are talking about, but if you can't make it accessible to the rest of New Zealand, then what's the point?
"In one of my Naturally Otago articles I was trying to explain that when some native birds come under really intense predation pressure, they do funny things; they end up having immature matings which are never successful; then you have these male-male pairings or female-female pairings.
"I described these as, 'an outbreak of teen pregnancies and homosexual tendencies'. The scientists were not amused. I don't care because I know my mum in Macandrew Bay can read that and go 'I know what she means'.
"I was lucky because I had a rich source of things I could tap into. But the thing I learnt about writing that column was that the very best place to find stories was to sit in the rangers' tearoom at Doc.
"They would tell you the most amazing stories: 'I've got three sick yellow-eyed penguins in my backyard at the moment'. I'd say, 'what, that's ridiculous - that'd make a great story', but it doesn't occur to them that it's a great story because it's just what they do."
Ms Vallance's role as national media manager for Doc often requires her to liaise with and support staff.
It's not all fluffy kiwi and kakapo. She does a lot of "trouble-shooting", she says, pointing to the recent debate about the pros and cons of Doc's 1080 poison campaign as one example.
"I always consider myself a public servant first so if there is information in the media that isn't true then it is my duty to let the public know the facts. With really emotive issues like 1080, it's very easy for the facts to get lost.
"It is a bit of a schizophrenic job at times. This week, I fronted up on Good Morning and sat on the couch and had a conversation about why we all love whitebait, and why we have to look after our freshwater fish . . . Then I'll come into work and I might have the minister's office on the phone or we might need a press release out."
Still, there are perks, opportunities for travel, though the destinations have been far from tropical.
On a three-week journey in 2004, she visited Stewart Island, the Snares, Auckland Island, Campbell Island, the Antipodes, the Bounties and the Chatham Islands.
Luckily, she doesn't suffer from seasickness: swells were often 7-8 metres.
"The worst day was 12 metres. It was pretty rough. There were a couple of busted bones on that trip. But they were some of the most incredible places I've been, just mind-blowingly awesome."
Once again, the powerful current that once moved a child to bring home cockabullies and caterpillars, rises to the surface.
"I turned 30 last year but still haven't grown up. As any of my colleagues will tell you . . . my decibel level is ridiculous."
