Spring On the Way?

Grandsons Benjamin and Samuel at Hamilton Gardens.

Someone heard a shinning cuckoo recently and that is a sure sign of Spring. A pair of blackbirds have been stripping bark from the kanuka tree to build a nest in the native cedar tree by our back fence while the starlings have been in and out of their nesting box sorting out the interior. We have had a very dry spell with no rain for something like 20 days so the falls coming recently mid September has been very welcome.

South Island Left; North Island Right

A Visit “Up North”

Shirl and I took the old campervan across Cook Strait to the North Island late August with the intention of tracking down relatives both alive and dead. The purpose was to seek out relatives headstones in various cemeteries from Hawera, New Plymouth, Hamilton, Tauranga, Whakatane, Taneatua and Waimana. And this we did plus meeting a number of live cousins along the way who helped us locating headstones of the ones who have passed away over the years. The idea of all this is to put together a family book of all the headstone inscriptions along with a photo of the actual headstone. Hopefully family members now and in the future will have a good reference of their ancestors. It was good to catch up with family, for both of us in Hamilton and for me to meet two grandsons, one I had not met before. They live in Auckland (not Arkland, as we have heard so recently on TV) but maybe one day Air NZ will offer cheaper and reasonable airfares? We passed through Rotorua smelling strongly. This was not from us but the

Thermal activity near Rotorua.

result of normal thermal activity. Things like, besides the smell, of steam rising from storm water drains and from

Thermal steam rises from a drain.

patches of bush here and there. Interesting though, once home I heard that scientists have been quite successful in harnessing this thermal activity for producing electric power even to the extent of a proposal to export this power via a cable to Tasmania. This seems a bit weird as I’m sure we could use this power ourselves. Maybe the scientists could figure out how to save the power that is lost on the transmission cables from the power stations to the cities?

Addison Road.

Addison Road

The small village of Waimana has strong links to my mother’s side of the family with land bought eventually by the government (no, not stolen!) and known as Waimana Station, of 8000 acres. In 1888, my Great Grandfather’s first job on the Station was a shepherd and later as manager. Around 1903/07 large Stations were broken up by the government and blocks sold off. Great grandfather bought one of the farm blocks around 1905. An Addison family memorial stone rests in the village church yard in recognition of the families contribution to the area and a local road is named Addison Road. I spent about two years at primary school here and the place has memories, but sadly it is not the place that I knew – sometimes it doesn’t pay to go back.  I’ll keep the happy memories though.

Red Fronted Parakeet.

Travelling

On the way as we passed through Otorohanga we called in to the Kiwi House and even saw a live kiwi. Once through this darkened building we walked around some open and caged pens with wild birdlife and then through a large caged area with more native birdlife. This was interesting as we spotted parakeets, banded rail and other native birds. I was disappointed though as I felt the place looked unkempt somehow. Maybe it’s because I don’t like zoo type places. I did feel sorry for some of the birds being so confined.

Kingfisher.

Weka trying to get into a rat trap.

Conservation Work

We have spent several days at Rabbit Island clearing weeds to extend one of the traplines. With the help of friends Ron and Greg, Shirl and I completed the run and had the traps set out too by mid August. The group now have four traplines on the island totalling 62 traps of three different types. Hopefully the nesting seabirds get a good start this coming breeding season.

Up Will’s Gully, another friend gave me 143 native seedlings and these are being planted after clearing out places for them. There has been infill planting and old rotting heaps of weeds of gorse, hawthorn and barberry are being pushed away into smaller heaps and the cleared area planted. So the total planted this season will be around 420 plants. It doesn’t seem a great number but a space has to be cleared first and this takes time and effort. Shirl has helped me with all this. And then Ron calls with a load of maybe 20 odd cabbage trees. Looks like another day’s planting ‘up the hill’. The kakabeaks are in flower and they have been planted along a rocky bank (Alison’s Bank) which if one walks the Top Track,  upon coming out of a bush area, one is struck by this glow of red.

Kakabeak.

Quite striking and if the other kakabeak plants grow and start to flower, it will be a good display every Spring. I was carrying a bundle of plants along one of the service tracks and I noticed a weka prodding one of the rat tunnels. I stopped to watch. It pushed and prodded the tunnel and then pushed its head into the entrance part a couple of times so I guessed the trap must have caught something. (It did – a mouse). I took my camera from my pack, leaving the case on the top of the pack and moved closer to get a photo. The bird then ran for my pack, snatched the camera case and took off. Damn! I took off too. My camera case was dumped a short distance away thankfully so I guess it was thought to be not so tasty after all. I didn’t want the mouse anyway.

The volunteer’s conservation newsletter that I put together each month has now been going for five years. Volunteer’s throughout our province send me reports on their doings, trapping, happenings and such, and I’m continually amazed at all the huge amount of voluntary effort that goes on, and mainly unnoticed. It is a great pity that the media in all its forms doesn’t spend a lot more of its time commenting on this instead of all the negative and violence items that they seem to promote.

Soon the godwits will return to New Zealand from their long flight from Alaska, a non-stop flight of 11,000 kilometres and to welcome them ‘home’ the cathedral bells will ring on Tuesday 23rd. The birds won’t care about this or even hear them, but maybe some people will and spare a thought for their effort. The birds won’t know or even care, but we just hope our trapping at Rabbit Island will help them though.

A good fall of snow on the 16th September on the ranges on both sides of us.

Rainfall at our place over July was 68.5mm a little less than our monthly July average of 78mm. For August it was 20.5mm – with our August average being 137mm. By the way, did you notice that this August had five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays? Apparently this only happens once every 823 years – hope you enjoyed it!