Due to tightened website security, I haven’t been posting as many updates as it is not quite as straight forward as it used to be and I have to call upon my very patient brother, Bruce, to enter the information.
A lot of restoration activity has been taking place. The cooler Christmas holiday break meant that Chris and I had enough energy to work in the bush clearing privet, bracken, moth plant and other weeds, making tracks, and weeding around the sedges planted last winter; as well as the more established plants. We checked and rebaited the stoat line adding two rats, one stoat and a hedgehog to our total.
Thanks to Cam Rathe, the valley is looking fabulous and he has managed to keep on top of the tradescantia. There has been a noticeable increase in birdlife due to last year’s pest control efforts. Cam spent another day in the valley on 31 January when he carried out further spraying, filled all the bait stations and rebaited the traps. Another stoat and two rats were added to the total. Cam has started adding this information to the ‘Walk the Line’ website (something we had intended to do last year).
This year the focus will be on increasing our pest control efforts and, with the help of Niklas Erikson, we have created two new tracks in bush along Mt Pleasant Drive where we will extend the stoat/pest line. Established areas of ginger and pampus were discovered in this area along with fully grown Hawthorn and eleagnus trees. We have been gradually working away at clearing these weeds. The large pine trees in this area pose a bit of a problem however there are some established native trees and new native seedlings popping up.
We were thrilled to see a brown tui during our holiday break who followed a daily routine of feeding from the pohutukawa tree in front of our property then swooping past the house and sitting on the telegraph pole. It was quite a cheeky bird. We haven’t seen it again since the pohutukawa stopped flowering. Attached is a photograph of it mid flight taken by Anita Erikson.;
