Tiritiri Matangi Island visit

It was a wonderful way to end my time on the PTSF by having a trip out to Tiritiri Island in the Hauraki Gulf during the July school holidays. The hours boat trip was enjoyable but the abundance of birdlife on the island was incredible.Within 5 minutes we saw many saddlebacks scratching in the sand finding tasty treats. Then a friendly N.I. robin hopped amongst our feet as we sat,listened and watched in the bush. Three takahe grazed out in the open and the tui feeder at the visitors centre was absolutely overloaded with tui! Another highlight were the huge number of stitchbirds and bellbirds at their feeders as we walked along the walkways. The fabulous views and great weather all helped make this a truely memorable day.

Symposium Day

To conclude our PTS Fellowship we all had an opportunity to share the science work we had been involved with through power-point presentations to our peers. As well we evaluated the programme we had been part of and got told of other teaching and learning opportunities through the Royal Society.

Everyone got presented with a certificate on completion of this special time.

I have loved all the great experiences and new people I have met while being part of this Fellowship.

Final Curriculum Days

All 32 teachers from around the country on the Primary Teachers Science Fellowship met in Wellington for two days to conclude our Curriculum days. We looked at resources and discussed ways we will take back science to our classes and schools.

Keruru browsing

Two large woodpigeon were having a great time browsing on tawa and mahoe trees close to the start of the walkway at Rotokare.

They enjoyed eating the leaves and buds of these native trees.

The keruru were a noisy pair as they flew from bush to bush and happily ate any berries or leaves around.

Setting up Invertebrate traps

Bryan is doing some study through Massey University and as part of this he needed to set up a couple of lots of pitfall traps for invertebrates to hopefully fall into!

We used the two locations reasonably close to the road and carpark for this.

I had helped set up the traps in the summer and we had fun locating the spots needed again.

Bryan, Sue and I had a lake walk in the process and enjoyed the beautiful flora and fauna of Rotokare as well.

Visit to Maungatautari

Melissa the Rotokare educator and I spent a couple of days visiting Maungatautari Ecological Island in the Waikato this week.

We were met by Gemma the educator and we watched a lesson she taught to children from a Te Awamutu school. Many of the things Gemma spoke about were similar to the things Melissa teaches children at Rotokare. It was great to see Gemma's lesson and then head into the native bush at the Southern Enclosure at Maungatautari.

We also enjoyed excellent meals and accommodation at 'Out in the Styks'.

Guided Bush Walk at Rotokare

I enjoyed taking two school groups on guided bush walks around the lake at Rotokare.

The rain came down and the track was muddy in places but the children from St Josephs in Stratford and a number of parents coped well!

There are lots of really interesting trees that are worth identifying on this walk.

They include mahoe,kawakawa,rangiora,lancewood and our only native palm the nikau.

Also magnificant tawa,pukatea and kahikatea are beautiful trees throughout the swampier areas. The range of ferns is also noteworthy as well as the pretty copper and green leaves of the parataniwha.

5 Minute Bird Counts

We had an enjoyable 'cluster meeting' in the provinces of three Primary Science Teacher Fellows.
Kim from Hamilton came down and met up with Pat and Janet in Taranaki for a couple of days.
We visited Pat's workplace at DOC New Plymouth and looked out at Tupuae Marine Reserve from Back Beach then spent a morning doing 5 Minute Bird Counts from points around the lake at Rotokare.
We managed to hear and see lots of Paradise and Mallard ducks,fantails and silvereyes.

A highlight was hearing and actually seeing a secretive fernbird amongst the raupo.

Bryan from Hawera also joined us and many thanks to Kara for organising and accompanying us-what a large number of bird calls she could recognise!

Viewing a robin at Rotokare

While collecting some Lizard traps in the Reserve I was lucky enough to be in the company of a very friendly North Island robin. It happily searched in the leaf litter for anything to eat and didn't mind me getting quite close for this photo.

Possibly the same robin has been seen in this spot during the late summer-we hope it has a mate out in the bush as well.

Birds I have seen often at Rotokare include fantail, woodpigeon,tui and bellbird plus various ducks and shags on the lake.

Bushy Park

Bushy Park is approx 30 minutes out of Wanganui.

Within the grounds there is a lovely old homestead plus a large amount of native bush.

I enjoyed some easy short walks and the native trees-a fantastic old Northern Rata,which started life as an epiphyte-being hosted by another tree!

At Bushy Park there is a predator-proof fence-similar to Rotokares and a shorter rodent fence as well.

Lake Rotokare Scenic Reserve website

Check out what is happening at Rotokare by visiting http://www.rotokare.org.nz/

This website gives you a map of where Rotokare is and some background information plus what's been going on out there recently.

It also tells you about 'the fence',what you might see and do and the interesting history of this special Reserve.

Collecting Lizard traps

Three types of Lizard traps have been out in the bush at Rotokare. Two of these- the tree covers and onduline ground traps can stay out all-year round but the pitfall traps need collecting and sorting before being set again next summer.

The pitfall traps are basically old paint cans baited with pear, set in the ground with a slim wooden cover over the top that hopefully any lizards at Rotokare will be attracted to.

On this day we were collecting traps up in the control area and on the bush ridge.

John had fun carrying these back to the carpark!

Otari-Wilton's Bush Reserve

While in Wellington we got the chance to visit Otari-Wilton's Bush Reserve. This is a huge bush area that includes native Botanic gardens within Wellington city.

There is an informative visitors centre, places to cook a barbeque and many walks-one of which took us to see this 800 year old rimu tree.

Kapiti Island Visit

The sun shone and there was barely a ripple on the sea as we went by boat out to Kapiti Island. Along with two other Primary Teacher Science Fellows I was fortunate to be able to visit Kapiti Island Nature Reserve.

Kapiti was made one of New Zealand's first nature reserves in 1897 and has developed into a success story in terms of its restoration and eradication of pests over this time.

Keruru are abundant and we saw many feeding on Coprosma near the waters edge. It was fantastic to see and hear saddlebacks and watch robins scratching amongst the leaf litter.

Rotokare Art Auction

The Trust ran a very successful Art Auction in Eltham at the beginning of May helping raise $11,000 towards the great work happening at the Reserve. Art By Janet Marshall, Prime Minister John Key and others sold well.

Over 150 locals attended to support this worthy cause.

Getting up close with bugs

I have worked from home this week sorting through invertebrate samples collected earlier this year and comparing this to samples collected two summers ago. Apparently the health of the soil can be told by what can be found in it. Another Fenced Reserve in the Waikato called Maungatautari did a study that found the number of beetles in the soil increased once pests and predators were fenced out.

Zealandia

The Karori Sanctuary-called Zealandia is quite unique in being so close to the centre of Wellington. One of its aims is to restore the Reserve to its original habitat-this includes translocating some bird species and even replacing introduced trees with natives. I was particularly interested in the 'fence' and seeing how it compared to Rotokare's.

Zealandia is a special place that has been developed over 10 years-I particularly liked the areas where you hear individual bird sounds through pushing buttons,the variety of bird nesting boxes,weta hotels and the new information centre and interactive/educational area.

Nga Manu and Pukaka Mt Bruce Reserves

Another highlight from visiting Mt Bruce and Nga Manu was observing during the feeding times of the Kaka and Longfin eels. If you are ever visiting these Reserves try to be there to see this. We couldn't believe the number of Kaka that seemed to appear from nowhere once they knew their dinner was to be served!

The sheer size and number of eels is amazing during their feeding time.When they spawn these eels travel way up into the Pacific near Fiji to reproduce and the common old longfin NZ eel is actually an endangered species.

Holding a modern day fossil

Kim, another Teacher Fellow from Hamilton and I had three days visiting Reserves and Sanctuaries in the Wellington area. What a great opportunity we had to see a variety of native birds and wildlife. Our visits included Pukaha Mt Bruce near Masterton with the Takahe, native eels and fantastic Kaka feeding time.

At Staglands near Waikanae we got to see the the Blue Duck/Whio -a native duck currently being reintroduced onto Mt Taranaki.

The most interesting part of our visit to Nga Manu at Waikanae was holding a 25 year old Tuatara and seeing Biology students from Victoria University taking blood tests and recording their measurements.

Our final day involved meeting with other Fellows from our group and having a very interesting and entertaining guided tour of Karori/Zealandia in Wellington.

Invertebrate sorting

I am feeling a little like a scientist starting to sort out what has been found in the soil during the summer! It is a challenging job and one where I'm learning on the job all about bugs.

The classification system with Families and Orders and even the odd Latin name is keeping me guessing lots!

Day to day work at the Reserve

A variety of work happens every day at Rotokare.

The Site Manager,Simon and Project Manager,Kara spend time deciding what needs doing and which jobs take priority.

Every day a fence check is considered vital to the successful running of the Reserve. To maintain the Reserve as a pest and predator-free sanctuary is always the main focus.

Other work I have been involved with is helping clear long grass and weeds away from the recent tree plantings up near the fenceline.

Baiting and collecting tracking cards from the huge number of tracking tunnels is also on-going work that I have helped out with.

Dunedin Leadership Course

Well it felt like my student days once again-but not having to return to a grotty flat each night was great!We had a wonderful week of learning,getting to know each other,eating fabulous food and being so well looked after at the Executive Residence at Otago Uni. As a follow-up we had two assignments to complete based on leadership. We had a guided tour of the city in old cars and some of us even ran/walked to the top of Baldwin Street!!

Science Curriculum Days

20 Fellows from the North Island met in Wellington for 2 days to discuss taking science back to our classrooms and schools. We had a visit to the Island Bay Marine Reserve and all of us teachers were given different marine creature hats to wear while there!

Lizard monitoring

I was lucky to join in the day DOC staff came and helped with some Lizard monitoring at the Lake. We did tree cover checks and ground checks at various places throughout the reserve.

The tree covers are large pieces of matting put on tree trunks that lizards may like to live under and the ground checks are 2 squares of onduline on top of each other that lizards may like to take cover between. Other lizard monitors are pitfall traps that were like big paint tins in the ground and they needed to be checked every day for 10 days. Unfortunately no lizards were located but some tracks were found in tracking tunnels.

Finding my way in the bush

I have been involved with some of the monitoring that happens at Rotokare. My first stint was helping set up and collect invertebrate monitoring within the reserve.We used previous equipment already in the bush but cleaned and refilled the invert traps at 5 different locations.

The collected invertebrates are in a type of 'antifreeze' to stop them from deteriorating. They needed collecting twice in a two week period.

February 2010-A change of workplace

Janet King considers herself fortunate to have been awarded a Primary Teachers Science Fellowship by the Royal Society for terms 1 and 2 of 2010.

She is spending her time at the Rotokare Scenic Reserve 12 kilometres inland from Eltham in Taranaki.

The special feature about Rotokare is the recent addition of a 8.4 km predator proof fence that protects the 230 hectare reserve.This has largely come about because a group of concerned locals wanted to protect their "slice of paradise".