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This rather large insect wiggled out from the black sand in the morning while I was watching the waves break from the sand dunes at Bethells beach near the car park.
It was completely buried in the sand, crawled out and then flew away.

I delayed posting this for about 6 years as I misplaced the photos.

After release of the karamu and surrounding bank from complete honeysuckle coverage in November 2018, the previously almost leafless tree is providing a little shade (and fed many birds with its fruit over summer and autumn). Shrubby toatoa seedlings have germinated below, along with some karamu and ti kouka seedlings.

The toatoa seedlings may include some from seed collected from wild plants nearby and scattered here in summer.

As the toatoa seedlings grew they were given all the space they could use, by gradually increasing removal of exotic herbs.

The culling ofbenign exotic herbs was accompanied by ongoing removal of aggressive and invasive weeds eg paspalum, docks, moth plant, Cape Honey Flower, Calystegia, wattle, and regrowth of partially-uprooted honeysuckle.

The toatoa have now filled out to cover several sq metres of this bank just below the margin of mown kikuyu, and are nursing a few dozen native seedlings - karamu, ti kouka and a hebe seen so far.

Above high tide, in dune depression. Seed from beach drift? Six seedlings, many submerged from previous night and morning torrential rain, with a floating layer of Kermadec pumice and sea shells.

Found originally by Kevin Matthews.