Walk About!

I spent the day doing an excellent 6 hour hike today around the proposed fence line for the sanctuary!

I was with two DOC guys (Department of Conservation). A plant guy and a bug guy. It was GREAT!

I saw two things I have been really wanting to see - a rare NZ wren called titipounamu (rifleman) and one of those category defying little creatures that doesn't really fit into one box or another in the classification sense - a velvet worm!
Titipounamu is a small insect eating bird that does not have a song as such but kinda squeaks. It looks like a wren but not related to true wrens. It is endemic to NZ which means it does not occur elsewhere. There are only two kinds of 'wrens' left in NZ and both are in danger of becoming extinct. We heard about 15 of them during our walk and I saw 7.

The velvet worm (Peripatus) has a phylum all it's own! They live in damp places near the soil. The ones we saw today were easily spotted under rotten wood. They are nocturnal. They look velvety! The one we photgraphed stretched out very long! They have stubby little legs with pads on the end. They were thought to be a 'missing link' species between annelids (worms) and arthropods (insects, spiders, crustacea). In any case - they have ancient origins and are really cool! <---- that is my technical term lol!


We went up high - which you probably can't tell from the above photo. The one below show how high - mountain beech dominates the forest and you might be able to tell the growth is somewhat stunted due to altitude.


oh! This guy seems to be very friendly too...


They love it when you walk by because you disturb the ground and make it easier for them to get grubs and bugs and such. This one in particular came and landed within arms reach so I scraped a bit of the ground in front of me and moved back and bit and he hopped straight over and found something!
They have long legs and like to hop about rather than fly.

The area that was are going to fence has a population of these birds that have managed to hold on and are now being supported by the intensive trapping programme we are running with the help of our wonderful volunteers! it really is incredible that these wee robins and tiny wrens have managed to survive! Things will be much much easier for them once we get the fence up!

Andrew Crowe day, E4E and a Trust meeting

and a partridge in a pear tree (well no not really! more like a kakapo in a rimu tree!)

Yes.. another fantastic day IN THE WORKPLACE!

Today we had one of my favourite authors at the sanctuary for the day working with classes of students from our region.
Andrew Crowe is an author who has a similar attitude to learning that I do. Learning is living. Like me he is interested in everything and often has many interests on the go at once. He will hear about something and become interested and want to find out more, he will then do a range of research and find out more and more then he will think.. "Hmmm, what book would have been really useful to me when I was doing my research.. hmm" .. then he will write that very book! Most of his books are identification guides for NZ native plants, insects, birds - he also has one for spiders and seashells (as well as a book about the Dalai Lama and edible NZ plants that resulted from when he was lost in the bush and then after he was not lost anymore he wanted to find out how he could survive if that every happened again and there resulted his first book!) This is the way I originally found out about Andrew. Through my new job I used one of his books to teach myself about some of our native plants and it was SUCH a good book and so easy to use and practical and amazing I wanted to find out about the author. So I researched!

He was very supportive of our project and donated LOTS of copies of his different books. My job is fantasic! When Andrew was finished I got to talk to three groups of students and parents today about the sanctuary and I could tell I excited them and engaged them.
About 100 people all together in just one day! (my throat is a tad on the raw side).

My next challenge is to work on the talks I give and the programmes I deliver to foster a sense of stewardship for our environment through continued connection with the sanctuary project and other projects in their more immediate community/street/school.

After this I went to a meeting of for "Education for Enterprise" which is an organisation which links schools with industry through contextual programmes that have real meaning in the real world. I came away from this with a positive feeling - the schools were delighted to have a resource (the sanctuary) that has so much potential for environmentally linked programmes of real value. It is great for us because being a community funded programme, all of our workforce, supplies, funds etc all come from donations of time and money. Having students turn some of our wants and needs into projects is wonderful!
One of the projects I have on the go right now is a bird feeder. A metal or wooden platform where a number of birds can gather to feed and people passing through the sanctuary can sit and watch them in their natural environment (supplemental feeding helps to keep the birds in good condition while the forest is regenerating and also due to pests such as wasps which cannot be kept out with the fence and heavily deplete the nectar sources).
I have another young man from Garin College who has taken on one of my dream projects... a hydro powered webcam to position at a nest box or a bird feeder.
One of our goals at the sanctuary is to be as sustainable in our energy use as we can be, both for our carbon footprint and as a model to our community.

After this meeting I had to go to our trust meeting. The sanctuary is run by a trust. It has twelve members from diverse business/interest background. These people make decisions on the direction and processes of the sanctuary. I report to them every month. The reporting process has been interesting. My more creative nature as expressed through my board reports, was not entirely understood by all trust members so it has been modified somewhat, LOL.
I have to be careful not to loose the charms that gained me the job in the first place though!

The meeting was splendid (even though the tiredness was starting to show with the bleary eyes and the relaxed and casual demeanor!) People are impressed by the amount of work I have been doing as reflected by my reports. Also we began planning a SECRET special winter event which involves something so amazingly special and wondifious that I grin with glee! Even doing the most ridiculously wretched and tedious of jobs would be BLISS for me to be involved with this event. I can't tell you about it now... but stay TUNED!