Great to have the rain! The big dry spell has finally broken. What a relief!
It’s been awhile since we’ve seen the rivers and streams as low as they have been this past month.

Overseas Help.

In the past few weeks Moehau Environment Group has had help from several small groups of volunteers from other countries.
This has meant many of the projects have been upgraded or expanded.
To date the Rat Attack project is having a ‘make-over’ with new boxes to house the traps. These are a more solid construction and less likely to be interfered with by pigs, who seemed to have developed a taste for the baits!(chocolate biscuit bits!)
The Waikawau Bay wetlands project has been expanded with over 150 rat traps in place and 100 baitstations.
Other improvements on projects has seen upgraded marking and tracks, and further baitstation replacements and additions prior to an autumn blitz on possums.

Australasian Harrier.-(Hawk)
Kahu,swamp harrier,marsh harrier.

Saw something the other day which I thought a little unusual:- a hawk hovering over the middle of the outgoing tidal channel in the estuary-fishing.
There was a large school of sprats broaching every now and then, and the hawk was plunging its talons up to its belly trying to catch one. After unsuccessfully trying for about five minutes, it gave up and flew off.
A couple of us monitored a hawk nest in the Waikawau Bay wetlands this year. Found by accident while carrying out rodent control, it was situated on a dry platform of reeds about a metre above the ground. Three white eggs hatched and after two weeks the large chicks disappeared. We first thought they had been predated, but have just read that they do scatter from the nest into the surrounding territory, after a fortnight, to within 50 metres of the nest site. On two occaisions there was fresh rabbit at the nest, and what looked like the remains of a hedgehog, and a long legged bird of some sort. Their diet at this time of the year is mostly live capture/kill.
Young adults are usually dark chocolate brown and as the bird ages it becomes paler with very old males occaisionally being almost pale grey

Salt Marsh Mosquito.

No live mosquitos have been found in the last month or so, at any of the sites in our region, and searches being carried out have turned up none at possible new places. This is good news, but they will carry on with the helicopter drops, every three weeks for a further twelve months.
It is hoped that that will be the last of it.
The thing is, with huge numbers of tourists and imports of one sort or another, there will always be a danger for NZ with these types of critters.
I guess we all need to be a little more vigilant. Biosecurity at Customs at our seaports and airports are just human and are bound to miss the odd insect or so. Think how big that mosquito is/WAS !
           
That’s it for now folks
Wayne T.