On Sunday, 28 March, our first community working bee for 2021 was spent clearing weeds at the bottom of Tenetahi Rd and along the foreshore, including kikuyu which has been smothering our earlier planting efforts.  7 volunteers attended.  A week earlier, we employed Stefan Spreitzenbarth, an Auckland University PhD marine biology student who cleared blue morning glory, convolvulus and other weeds, making our job a bit easier.  A big thanks to Pete Watkinson for mowing the kikuyu closer to the edge of the planting.  (Hopefully the Council contractors will follow suit).  Thanks also to Jo Evans who removed some of the larger cuttings and elephant ear rhizomes in his ute.

Two uninvited visitors have been found in the valley by Richard Aickin and his wife Jan.
An Australian Water Dragon was seen but not caught a few weeks ago and has not been seen since.
Recently they came across a turtle (refer photograph below). Richard said ‘Not sure what we’ll find next, will need to call in reinforcements if it’s a crocodile!’. Both the Australian water dragons and turtles are becoming a real problem in the Auckland area and we have been advised by a representative from MPI that it will soon be illegal to keep the water dragons as pets. It is hard to know if these were abandoned pets or escapees.