Konini!

I went for a quick wander up the hill today, checked a few possum traps on the top of the hill and was amazed at the birdsong- grey warblers, tui and bellbirds all singing away! Then down to the Glory entrance and something caught my eye: The kotukutuku/fuschia have been flowering for a few weeks, they are beautiful, so colourful, and I've seen the occassional green fruit starting form, but here at the Glory Track entrance this tree has streaked ahead and has ripe fruit already! Maori call these konini and they are edible though not filling and I've heard many people say they used to make jam but I've never had the desire to pick enough.

The flowers are captivating each seems a little different, some have bright yellow pollen tips, others have electric blue. My camera doesn't do them justice, you'll have to check them out yourself! The young flowers have a purple/blue hue and they turn red as they mature and eventually fall to the ground.

Kotukutuku are one of possum's favourite foods and since we've had a thriving population on the hill for many years the fuschia's have been hammered, many were browsed to death but those that are left have had a couple of years with enough protection that they are again thriving and their new growth is so encouraging, to not see it munched!

I did a quick google search to see if there was a reason for the flower difference and found this:

I whea koe I te tahuritanga o te rau o te kotukutuku

Where were you when the leaves of the Fuchsia tree (Fuchsia excorticata) began to grow in the spring? A reproach against those who were no where to be found when the work was to be done in planting season, but who may appear at the time of harvest.

That sounds familiar:

The more you look the more you find and whilst giving a different fuschia a goog looking over I saw a white foam deposited on the underside of a leaf, have absolutely not idea what that is?! Sometimes I wish there was a pocket Lloyd Esler or a pocket Brian/Chris Rance to take with me when I'm out and about. I do have a pocket Hugh Wilson and that's very handy!

weta motels

Huds and I recently had a fantastic trip from Chch to Auck in a campervan, and along the way we stopped at a few sanctuaries to get inspired and Zealandia has certainly done that! What they lack in mature forest they make up for in resources and 'interactiveness' if that's a word? Down our way we're thinking ahead about what kind of goals we'd like to achieve over the next, 1 year, 2 year, 5 years and beyond and being able to see what other trusts are achieving is helpful. Zealandia has a huge resource of people, volunteers and also expertise and they look to be pretty well funded. They have a fantastic visitor that we could have spent hours in but only spent 1 hour. The other few hours we spent wandering around the accessible tracks, spotting tuatara, meandering with the takahe an enjoying the forest birds that were around, but shhhh, we have soooo many more ;-)




One of the stand-out set ups they have is their weta motels. Weta munchable to so many native critters and even more munchable to introduced ones so they are having a hard time in unprotected areas, clinging on to survival. They are nocturnal, don't like UV light at all so seek totally dark place to secret away in the day. Building safe places for them with doors allows people to get a glimpse during the day whilst still keeping them secure. These weta motels are made from logs, they blend into the forest around them and at Zealandia they stand in sets, one has a lock on the door, one is unlocked so the weta aren't constantly being annoyed, just every alternate day ;-)







To my eyes there looks to be a fair amount of work creating them but they are so beautiful and such a splendid way for people to be able to see them in their natural environment, they aren't in boxes or aquariums

These have labels on them, without them you'd not even know to look in them, they look just like the trees around them

We only had a few hours there but had we had a few days it would have been time well spent,

Chris :-)

Official opening - Bluff Community School Native Plant Nursery

On Thursday 6th October, we had our official opening. What a great day 'Tumeke' , Papatuanuku (mother earth) turned on the sun and the people came! The birds were singing, the kids were singing, we all planted 120 native trees and shrubs and then had some awesome kai (thanks to all the parents who provided scrumptious plates of food). A big thanks to Alison, the Teachers and the Board of Trustees, for allowing us free reign with their wonderful students. Thanks to Brian and Chris Rance from the Southland Community Nursery, Jan and Helen from the Bluff Community Board, Gail and Sharon from Te Rau Aroha Marae, the Bluff Engineering guys and parents for their support digging holes and helping the students plant the trees on our special day. Of course it goes without saying a really big thank you to The Community Trust of Southland, The Southland Community Nursery, 'Gordie' from Fryers Nursery for all the pots, and The Southland Times for the great article in the paper. Last but not least a huge thanks to my friend Chris, she is an inspiration and none of this would have been possible without her.

Supporting local schools

The trust has been committed to providing support to local schools through educating both students and teachers about what we do and how we do it...

Over the last 12 months trust members have regularly taken students from the Bluff Community School on field trips to Bluff Hill gathering seeds and cuttings, teaching the students about possum, mustelid and rat control techniques and identifying plants and the damage introduced pests cause to the forest ecosystem. The trust saw the need to also educate student in plant propagation techniques to help restore the hill and other local areas.

Trustees have assisted the school in establishing a native plant nursery on site and over the last 4 months the nursery has developed so well we have run out of room, and are now looking to expand!

Students have visited the Otatara Community Nursery to learn the techniques needed to for their own nursery project, Chris Rance and the Otatara Community Nursery have been such a great resource for the Trust in establishing the School Nursery that we are now planning to establish a Community Nursery.

On our last field trip to Bluff Hill/Motupohue this week students were taken to an area of established forest to view the effects of possum browse on mature trees, four students were asked to find a dead Totara and stand next to them..... check out the photo below! The students had no trouble finding four large Totara in that small area standing 'dead' in the forest, if we had 50 students they would have all found a dead Totara too stand beside in the area we were in. The Rata in this forest are just holding on and are doomed to the same fate as the Totara unless the Trust is able reduce and maintain possum numbers. If we can, this sad image could become a 'what was' and the future will be mature trees recovering and seedlings everywhere!

The students of all ages that we take on these field trips are enthusiastic and attentive they are eager to learn and a pleasure to teach. This makes us more determined to continue and increase our work with Schools, these kids are the future of the environment and the Trust and everything we do must include them!

Tui Researcher

Last week we had a visit from Sarah Wells, and her assistant Matuna two Auckland students who are researching Tui all over the country, this research has never been done before. The girls took blood samples, tagged and measured 15 Tui caught at Bluff, they also caught 15 at Otatara and are currently at Rakiura to catch 30 there.
DNA testing of the blood samples will show them weather our birds are genetically diverse or interbreeding due to extensive loss of habitat in Southland. This research is vital for the future survival of these iconic birds.

left: Sarah & Matuna taking a Tui form the mist net

right: Chris holding a tui for Sarah

The girls had 10 days to catch the 15 Tui needed at Bluff so they contacted Chris and Estelle who have been feeding Tui in their yards over winter, Sarah and Matuna set up the mist nets at Chris' house on day one and caught 8 Tui in about 3 hours. The next day even though the weather took a turn for the worst, the girls were able to caught the other 7 at Estelle's in little over an hour. They then had a few extra days to explore some of Southland before heading off to Stewart Island. Great effort girls!!!

Pottle packers

Robbie Burns did say that 'the best laid plans of mice & men often go astray'. -Hopefully the rest of the plans will go Ok. We intended to buy the rat poison for our pulse in nifty clean little potato starch pouches called 'strikers', with which we would then frolick through the forest and staple them easily onto trees for rats to eat. But alas the whole country wanted the same thing at the same time and we couldn't get them SO the pottle packing team has together drilled, packed, squashed, weighed and re-packed almost 1200 pottles of pre-feed and poison. It has taken a lot of time and preparation and freaky gloves and cost us a lot more. But I must admit it was quite a nice communal experience spending a bit of time together on the production line, we even got fish 'n' chips for smoko.
Now the pre-feed has been put out, the rats already have eaten it and are keen for more, they'll just have to wait til the weekend. It might even snow, -that's not in the plan! But the rest of the plan is to meet at the end of Gunpit rd at 9am Saturday 17th and to spend probably 2 hours nailing the pottles to trees at the rat locations. If you're keen to come all you need are gumboots, or normal boots, or lace up gumbooots. We will tell you everything you need to know on the day, -all things going to plan!

A Visit to St Teresa's School

It's not often that members of Bluff Hill Motupohue Environment Trust are seen cuddling rats. Little gingery 'Willard' the pet rat, at St Teresa's is a bit special. He watched the trap demonstrations, listened to the talk about rodent monitoring and the pulse of cholecalciferol aimed at his relatives, inspected the abandoned bird's nest, looked over the maps and totally agreed that ferrets are fearsome predators before weeing on Mitch's upper thigh region and scuttling away underneath the bookshelf.
The students at St Teresa's are excited about their current inquiry into pests, weeds, native animals and plants on Bluff Hill. They were motivated by the ugliness of the north facing side of Bluff Hill after the pine trees were logged. The students hope to set up pest monitoring and a small trapping project and plant lots of native trees to make a healthy and attractive habitat for native animals. Awesome stuff. Maybe Willard will be allowed to visit in one of those big plastic balls.