Mataia Restoration Project Newsletter

June 2015

HELLO family, friends and supporters of the Mataia Restoration Project (MRP)

The Winter Planting Season HAS BEGUN The proof:-

35 WOPS and 9 International Student Volunteers on their way to planting 1500 trees. An overheard comment:- “You ladies sure kick butt at planting trees!!” (No prizes for guessing where the majority of our international student volunteers come from!)

Vinnie (IVS) busy digging holes for two willing WOPS to plant.

The finished product-a fantastic effort To be rewarded with lunch (for everyone) and a birthday cake for two of our volunteers:-

Andrea (IVS) from Canada turned 19 today Jo, a WOPS lady turns ………tomorrow!

A VERY BIG thank you to both the Women’s Outdoor Pursuits Group and to the International

Student Volunteers for their huge effort today. This means that:-

there are now only 6000 trees left to plant this season!

And just a reminder about those planting dates so you too can be part of the

food, friendship and fun.

Tauhoa TfS Planting on Friday 19th June Friends and Family Planting on Saturday 4th July (rain date Sunday 5th July) (dinner, bed and breakfast also available at no cost! Phone to book your bed NOW!) Meadowbank TfS Planting on Tuesday 28th July

And just a reminder of what to bring:- gumboots or similar footwear

old clothes!

a spade if you have one,

gloves if you prefer to wear them,

a water bottle

raincoat

Volunteers. As you have no doubt already gathered 8 International Student Volunteers and their leader have been with us at Mataia since the weekend. International Students Volunteers combine volunteering with adventure travel. ISV operates tours in six countries, including New Zealand. The focus is on conservation and learning about environmental sustainability and over 310 universities around the world recognize ISV projects for academic credit. On Saturday we had a scheduled kiwi catching day and after a couple of false starts the team finally managed to catch a bird which needed to have its transmitter removed. So they all got to see a kiwi.

Julie holding kiwi for students to view. Kevin is holding a micro-chip reader ( cattle sized!)

The remainder of the weekend was “free time” and was spent checking out the hot springs at Parakai (Awesome!), shopping and sightseeing on the East Coast. Then it was back into work on Monday, releasing previous year’s plantings, planting some canopy trees and collecting plant stakes. Tuesday began with laying out the plants ready for planting and then the actual planting. After lunch the team planted 40 pohutukawa which DOC Warkworth gave to us last year from the Project Crimson. These had spent the summer in CUE Haven’s nursery. Thank You! Today was pest control day – we checked and re-baited several lines of traps as well as monitoring the whereabouts of the remaining transmitted kiwi.

IVS students checking whereabouts of transmitted kiwi On Thursday the students will help out at the Atuanui Restoration Project, carrying traps into the bush. Friday is cottage clean up morning and then off to the South Island for the adventure travel part of their stay in NZ.

Another VERY BIG THANK YOU, firstly to the people in the “backroom” of IVS and of course to the

group, and their leader Jonathan, who have been with us this week. We very much appreciate the contribution you have all made to our project.

And our regular Kings College volunteers spent a day with us at the end of May.

This group worked up on nearby Atuanui Mt Auckland. The boys each carried a DOC200 trap into the bush to be placed and GPS’d into position by Atuanui’s Pest Control Manager, Stuart Rogers. Their work means that we don’t have to hire expensive helicopters to transport the traps into the bush – a huge cost saving.

So a very BIG thank-you to the boys for their hard work.

Stuart (light coloured shirt in foreground,) shows the boys the workings of a DOC200 trap.

Kiwi Catching Yet another great group of kiwi catchers gathered on Saturday. Ngaire Skelton and Leeann Edwards came back – so it mustn’t be all bad. We had a chuckle at Ngaire’s “safe home” email – “The Vivofit recorded 13502 steps, so we covered a bit of ground.”

It was great to have Julie back for the day – we are making the most of having her around as she now has a

full time position with MPI (Ministry of Primary Industries) Congratulations Julie.

And Colin, Mataia’s own deer hunter extraordinaire, and his wife Carol (another ex-vet nurse) came too.

And want to come again so it definitely isn’t all bad.

And of course Kevin. I couldn’t make it this time – Mataia is an Ornithological Society’s Wading Bird site for their surveys so I took Mataia’s bird counter, Paul, out to the Pakaraka flats to count birds. I learnt heaps – like I need a good pair of binoculars! Paul counted many pied stilts, oyster catchers, red billed gulls, and some godwits, Caspian terms, paradise duck, kingfishers and herons The kiwi catchers had great success after a false start with Tahi who was well hidden in a steep section above the Mataia Point. The second search found a transmitter with no bird attached!

The third bird was Marama who was tracked to a pampas very close to her new mate Francis. Julie, our very experienced kiwi handling volunteer pronounced her probably gravid. Most exciting news so we will keep a good eye on Francis in the next few weeks to see if he starts to incubate. The fourth search found yet another transmitter – these two “transmitters with no birds” had been attached to two of our new females and designed to come off earlier rather than later – and they did! Not to be thwarted the group decided to have another try for Tahi and were successful. So all the “oldies” are now done and just two new young males which we will do in early, July.

Once again, if you would like to come to join us to assist with kiwi catching please do let us know as we are always looking for helpers.

Visitors:-

Dr Dan Blanchon accompanied by several other staff members and 17 students spent a fortunately dry Friday doing the bulk of their field work. The next day, a very wet Saturday, was spent examining specimens – the Homestead makes a great science lab!

Pest and Predator Control Several weeks ago we were asked to add our pest and predator control efforts to this map.

http://predatorfreenz.org/the-big-picture/ If you have a chance to check it out, it really is amazing to see the amount of pest and predator control that is going on in the whole of NZ. Predator Free NZ have a very simple aim “To protect our endangered native species by eliminating the threat of predators.” By joining all these groups together we could so this New Zealand wide! And one more tiny reminder about planting days.

Come and be part of

food, friendship and fun.

Just a quick email to let me know you are coming so that there is enough of the food bit of the equation!! July 4 :- Morning tea from 9.00am to start planting at 10.00am

Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter. We very much appreciate your support.

Gill, Kevin and the Mataia Restoration Project Team

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