Promoting the open day

• There is a news article on page 7 of the 18th August Hamilton Press community news paper in support of our open day.
• Rototuna School and Hukanui School have been approached to see if they would put an advert in their news letter for our open day. I am not sure if this is possible as I do not know what their school policy is.
• Requests have gone to the Ornithological Society and the Forest and Bird soliciting their support. The response was positive and enthusiastic.

Page updates

• Revised and updated the “Planting List” page with input from Paul Duff and Wayne Bennett.
• Updated the map and added a google earth view to “The Gully” page.

Gully visit with Hamilton City Council

Monday 26th July
Paul Duffy, Contract Supervisor – Natural Areas, Hamilton City Council and I walked the gully as a follow up on last Wednesday’s meeting to further familiarise ourselves on what the gully offered and to discuss potential restoration options.

Meeting with interested parties at Hamilton City Council

On Wednesday 21st July Robin and I had a meeting at Hamilton City Council with Gerard Kelly, Community Planting Co-ordinator, Paul Duffy, Contract Supervisor – Natural Areas, and Tim Newton, Gully Restoration Officer.
On the agenda was:
Councils long term vision for the gully
Objective for the open day set for 1pm on Sat.18th Sept.
Suitable speakers for the open day and the format.
A draft public invitation mailer was tabled
How to use an email list and blog for effective communication to interested people
Funding options
Possibility of Maori involvement and contacts.

Birds around the gully

A Tui was seen today in the gully at the back of Hukanui School. A Grey Wabler was heard a few days ago in a heavily treed property very near the gully. If we can get the rat numbers down it would be great to get the numbers up with successful chick rearing.

Tui photo from www.tuiscope.co.nz/

Grey Warbler photo from http://blog.forestandbird.org.nz

Planting list pubished as a page above.

All future planting in the reserve gully area should be eco sourced and comply with the planting list.
This list is an extract from Hamilton City Council Gully Reserves Management Plan Dec 2007 Appendix 3
The list is an extract from a report by Landcare Research prepared by Beverly R. Clarkson and Bruce D. Clarkson in 1997 (revised April 2000) for the Ministry of the Environment.

Tree planting at Waiwhakareke

I went tree planting with Conservation Volunteers at Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park (Horse Shoe Lake) which is out by the Hamilton Zoo. Four of us planted 800 trees in one day. A good result I thought. Check out their website for more information as to what they are about and the history of the place. http://www.waiwhakareke.co.nz/