Journal archives for August 2016

August 23, 2016

Nature Watch One Year On

It was about this time last year that I wanted to find out if some of the plants growing on my place were native or not. Searching around I found a site that you could put up photos and you could get an ID, but you had to pay to join. Looking more, I found NatureWatch and lurked around for a few days to see how things worked and to get a feel for the people here. Didn't take me long to realise that there were alot of very knowlegable people here and alot of scientists. I did wonder if they would be bothered in helping me with my stuff but if you never try you never know so I put up my first obs, a Northern New Zealand Dotterel that I put as a New Zealand dotterel, not realising that that there were two species. and I got an ID for it that day so I was totally stoked :)

The next day I thought I would put up some plants that I did not have a clue what they were. Not wanting to be a hoha I only put up 6 different ones and got ID's for these as well. The next couple of months every now and again I would add up obs, until November when I really started putting up a lot as I was wandering around on tracks that are unaccessible by road. December I finally got my underwater camera and that opened up a whole new world of colour and sea creatures.

NW has been a great learning experience for me - everything that I have walked past for years and not seen I am now seeing and now I wonder what else I have missed out on seeing! And of course I am lucky that I live in Otaipango (Henderson Bay) which is an ecological wonderland, both whenua and moana wise with both at my backdoor. (hendersonbay.co.nz is where I am and all of those photos are mine) I was quite surprised with some of the reactions that I got here at NW for some of my obs and it took me a while to realise that others do know this is an ecological wonderland but obs from here are done on field trips whereas I can just go outside and photograph what is in my own back yard. And things that I thought were common as I see them growing everywhere wild, like pingao, sand coprosma and out my window heaps of Kunzea linearis, are declining.

Some of the maps under the taxon pages are quite interesting now as there is a strong cluster of dots up here, now much til Auckland and around Wellington and Chch. For some taxa there is a darker cluster here than anywhere else! Just goes to show what a happening place this is LOL

iNat is the parent and global site and Nature Watch is our little corner of the world. Really stoked to have 2 iNat observations of the day which is exciting getting global recognition for a couple of little beauties from Otaipango (Maori for Henderson Bay) as seen below

Where to From Here
For the rest of the year I need to get more speices obs so I can get 366 species that are not plants and find some more of the rare / endangered / declining plants of home that are in my lists section. One day I may even have seen them all! LOL

And in closing, NatureWatch would not be the great place that it is without the great people that are a part of it - kia ora to you all!

Posted on August 23, 2016 11:41 PM by tangatawhenua tangatawhenua | 0 comments | Leave a comment

August 30, 2016

Sneaky Immigrants Trying to Settle Under Willy Wattle

I have declared War on Willy Wattle which probably will take as long as the allies did to win WWII to be able to get rid of it all as there are a few acres of the stuff. On days without wind, and when the tides are wrong, out comes the chainsaw and a few get dropped, chopped and shredded. On windy days if the tides are wrong then I go lopping the smaller ones and overhanging branches.

On the 29th Aug 2016 I decided to go lop in an area that I had not yet explored but had thin wattles in between kanuka, which of course I do not lop as I am trying to encourage the native / endemic bush to regenerate. The area I went into is only about 7m x 4m.

Sheez! In there I found 1 Bazil Bushy Needlebrush that is no longer, 2 different types of bottlebrush that have now been confirmed as such and are therefore coming out next windy bad tide day but the shock was finding at least 12 large Peter Pampas in that area. That stuff is hard to get rid of - I have been working on getting rid of 5 of them for the past 4 years but they still keep on coming back up. So to start off that will be a slash job, to at least get it down before it all sets seed. I think the middle names for Peter Pampas is Persistant Problem

Mind you, I suppose I should not be surprised that Willy Wattle also has allies so I guess I shall just have to call in some of my own over the next few years :)

Posted on August 30, 2016 07:07 AM by tangatawhenua tangatawhenua | 4 observations | 2 comments | Leave a comment