Nature in the City Strategy – Hamilton City

 

Mangaiti Gully Restoration Trust's base camp. 

The draft has just been approved by the elected members of Hamilton City Council. It now becomes a strategy document. When the final document is available, we will post an update with a bit of the background that led up to this important strategy document that is going to underpin the restoration and protection of our indigenous and native biodiversity within our city. We would like to particularly thank Amanda Banks, Policy and Strategy Advisor, who pulled all the information and submissions together into the final document; councillor Sarah Thompson, mayor Paula Southgate for their understanding and enthusiasm for the importance of protecting and enhancing our biodiversity for our future generations and the environmental committee chaired by councillor Margaret Forsyth.   This link will take you to the Stuff website for an article summarising this occasion. https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/123574665/ten-per-cent-native-vegetation-target-set-for-city-nature-strategy

Spring tracking tunnel monitoring

 

For those that are unfamiliar with monitoring rats using tracking tunnels, these tunnels are left out all the time, so rats get familiar with them in their territory and twice a year in the spring and autumn we put an inked card in the tunnel along with peanut butter as a lure. If rats are present, then they leave black ink footprints on the card. This is a good way to record rat density. If no rats are recorded it does not necessarily mean there are no rats but it does indicate that the population is very low. We have 32 monitoring tunnels spread throughout the gully. This November we recorded 1 card with rat prints, 2 cards with mouse prints and 9 cards with hedgehog prints. Overall an excellent result and a credit to all those volunteers who service the 111 bait stations once a fortnight.  

A copy of the “Tracking Tunnel Register”, is available in the Mangaiti Gully Restoration Trust  pdf Library

Dead willows have been felled

Before 

 Thanks to a grant from Hamilton City Council (part of the $100,000 allocated for gully restoration in the last annual plan) we had two arborists from Green Footprint, working for six days felling many willows that we had poisoned in past years. The willows were becoming a problem as they were starting to fall. Uncontrolled falling was causing damage to the understory and there was a safety issue of the willows falling across public paths. Fallen willows also made access to do maintenance on the ground a problem. The heads of the trees worked a bit like a net making access difficult.

Eel deaths

Bad news. The gully systems of Hamilton have, over the years, been used as part of the cities stormwater infrastructure which reticulates rainwater from the roads and house roofs down to the Waikato river. However, the gully streams are also shared by many of our indigenous freshwater species. All this is fine and works well until some person spills or deposits a pollutant (poison) into that waterway that kills everything, as it flows downstream or until it gets diluted sufficiently not to be toxic.  This is what happened at the Haswell Street storm water outlet killing eleven eels. The small gully arm that runs up behind Sexton Road to Haswell place used to be well stocked with banded kokopu but of recent years they have all gone. It only takes one person to use the stormwater drain for the dumping of unwanted liquid toxins to clear life out of a stream. While we appreciate that this is not always intentional, there needs to be more publicity around managing our waterways. Anything other than fresh water needs to go into the sewer system via the laundry tub or the gully traps where grey water exits the house.

Rainbow skink found

A DOC file photo

 More bad news. There has been the first positive identification of rainbow skinks in Mangaiti Gully. A dead one was found on the concrete path leading off Sexton Road into the gully. The injuries to the skink that would have caused its death were consistent to a cat bite. 

We have had reports in the past from residents of Millie Place, which is in the same area, of skinks that fitted the description of rainbows, but this is the first positive ID.

Rainbow skinks are a highly invasive Australian self-import. They reproduce by laying eggs, unlike our indigenous skinks that give birth to live offspring. This enables the rainbows to reproduce much more rapidly.  There is no known means of eradicating them once they are established without also eradicating our indigenous species. The copper skink being our local one.

Wood pigeon sightings

 

There has been repeated sightings of kereru / wood pigeon in Mangaiti Gully in July, August, and September this year. These sighting were all in the northern arm of the gully in the vicinity of the Coleraine / St James over bridge and Sexton Road. This is the first time we have had persistent sights over a period of some months. This is very encouraging for the future. Many of you that live on Mangaiti Gully will remember that this was how tui started to populate the gully system not all that many years ago.

Book: Where Song Began by Tim Low

 

I purchased this book after reading an article in the winter edition of the Forest & Bird magazine, that related to tui. The book’s overall theme is that Australian birds are the origin, through evolution, of all the songbirds in the world. The earlier theory (1800s) was that songbirds evolved in Europe no doubt because they thought Europe was the centre of their early civilisation. However, DNA and LNA testing has exposed their folly. The book is in fact much wider than just songbirds. It delves into the origin of nectar feeders and parrots, both of which Australia has many. It investigated the relationship of birds’ unique habits with the equally unique Australian flora. Many trees and plants have adapted, in some cases to their detriment, to rely on their relationship with birds to reproduce either by fertilising their flowers or to distribute their seeds.

To sum up, a quote from the book,” Australia has the oldest songbird lineage as well as the wealth of form and behaviour that goes with tens of millions of years of slow and steady diversification. The evolutionary distance between a lyrebird and, say, a currawong, is larger than that between any two songbirds in Europe or the Americas.”

A you tube clip of a lyrebird calling by David Attenborough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSB71jNq-yQ

I found this a really fascinating book. The only thing I struggled with was that I had little knowledge of the Australian bird (Baudin’s black-cockatoo, mallee emu-wren) and flora names but google helped me out with this as I went along. A good informative read.

9780143572817 (paperback) Penguin Random House Australia, 2017

Reviewed by Rex Bushell

Dedication to rat eradication

 

We received this email from a gully neighbour: “Last week a neighbour of ours who lives in Huntington saw a rat run from the gully across his section and across the road. He chased it and eventually killed it with a good old 4 x 2, three properties down. I wish I had it on camera.”

We wish you had a camera too! The rat was possibly a little groggy from snacking on a bait block from down in the gully!

Kōura / fresh water crayfish

The North Island Kōura Paranephrops planifrons

There are two species of freshwater crayfish or Kōura in New Zealand. The North Island species, Paranephrops planifrons has been found in the Gordonton section of the Mangaiti stream. While kōura can often be found in native, exotic and some pastoral watercourses, they are generally rare in Hamilton city streams as they are quite sensitive to urban runoff. In addition to water quality, the presence of instream structural cover (logs, undercut banks, tree roots) is crucial for supporting the presence of kōura. Cover provides shelter from aquatic and terrestrial predators and helps to trap leaves and other detritus that koura feed on.  While eels are a natural predator, if there is plenty of thick cover and undercut banks they can co-exist. The trend tends to be that the higher you go upstream and the smaller the watercourse gets, and the harder it is for fish to get to, the more kōura you find. Streams like this also tend to have lots of leaf matter and small stable pools for the kōura to eat and reproduce. In some streams where formidable waterfalls with big overhangs prevent fish access, kōura can be very abundant. Under such situations, kōura can often be observed out in the open in the middle of the day, grazing happily away on litter on the bottom stream pools, with no fish to influence their behaviour. In streams that have fish, they tend to stay much closer to cover and to only venture out into the open to feed under the cover of darkness. They have been seen grazing on algae etc on bedrock sheets out of the water, but where they can be 
kept moist.  

                                                            Koura in the Mangaiti stream. 

Barn owls are coming

Photo by NBC News

Barn owls have become established in New Zealand. They are working their way down from the north, and there have recently been sightings as close as Pokeno. They are 2 ½ times the size of our ruru / morepork and have white plumage on the front. For those that did not see the article in the Waikato Times, this link will take you to their interesting story. Waikato Times link Sat 23 May 2020.

Eel signs and ongoing threats

New signs ready for installation

The threat to our eel population is ongoing. In March eleven eels were poisoned at the Haswell Place stormwater outlet. This would have been caused by some person putting a poisonous substance into the stormwater system.

We appear to have arrested the fishing of eels by installing signs. The temporary signs, erected some years ago, are being replaced with permanent ones with a QR code. When this is scanned on a smart phone, it takes the user to a DOC You Tube clip about longfin eels, and why it is important to give them protection. It is the longfin eels that have a classification of “at risk, declining”.

Click on this link https://youtu.be/8w0kgAwv1Ps  to see eels, including longfin, and giant kokopu. This was filmed in the Gordonton Stream section of Mangaiti Gully by a local resident. This demonstrates the importance of protecting the habitat of freshwater fauna as we restore our gully back to native flora cover.

Tumbleweed

Kimberly Andrews, lead designer
with husband James Innes

The artwork of the eel on our new signs, was generously donated by Kimberly Andrews who is the lead designer for Tumbleweed Tees. With a background in biology and geology, Tumbleweed Tees have turned their understanding and love of the natural world into a t-shirt & design business. They produce unique screen-printed artwork and clothing as well as stationery and gifts. They pride themselves on their designs “a nod to scientific illustrations of the past”. All designs and print work are done by them in house, from rough sketches through to finished artwork, transferring the art to silk screens and printing. They print using environmentally friendly, water-based ink. They are extremely proud of the fundraising partnerships they have formed with conservation projects around New Zealand, donating $5 of each adult t-shirt sold to specific conservation groups. Check out their full product range online www.tumbleweedtees.com  This range includes kids Tees and organic cotton onesies for babies.

Track building complete

We build tracks to give us access to areas that we are actively restoring. Our track and boardwalk design has been developed over the ten years we have been restoring our section of the Mangaiti Gully.  One of the main criteria for the tracks is that we can easily use wheelbarrows on them, our main mode of transport for haulage. The latest 150 metres was completed in June and was funded by a Lillian Valder Grant (Administered by Forest and Bird). This brings an end to track building, with 1.4 km built over ten years. We now have easy access to all our section of Mangaiti Gully.

While these tracks are built as service tracks, they are available to be used by the community. During lock down there was a marked increase in the community “exploring” the gully.

This past season’s avian (bird) activity

The avian focus area is inside the
red boundary line. 

There are three stages of getting a bird species (e.g. tui) re-established into an area.

1/ the bird is seen outside the breeding season.

2/ they are present during the breeding season and they develop a territory and nest.

3/ Chicks survive to fledge

It is not until stage 3 that a species can truly be classified as re-established. For most indigenous species this will require the removal of rats, possums and mustelids*.

Prior to our aggressive rat and possum eradication policy (there has been no signs of mustelids) in Mangaiti Gully which started in 2016 it was rare to see any juvenile birds outside the occasional fantail.

* ferrets, stoats & weasels

Tui

Photo by Owen Cole

The Halo project must be credited with getting tui back into Hamilton City in large enough numbers to re-establish. It is hoped that kereru / woodpigeon and bellbirds will also follow.  In Mangaiti Gully since 2016 there has been a year on year increase to the point that sightings of juvenile tui during the  breeding season are now a common sight and tui are now moving out of the gully into the suburbs. We recorded a tui nest this season. A grandson of one of our volunteers edited the recordings into a You Tube clip

Owl nest

When the arborist was installing a bat home in a large old pine, he found a morepork / ruru nesting in a hollow in the trunk. Using a motion activated field camera we filmed the morepork’s nesting activity. There was at least one chick being feed. Open the attached 10 sec video clip to see the owl approaching the nest and feeding a chick.  Filmed on the 21st December.

 A further owl observation was made not all that far from the nest this month (April) by a family getting “nature time” during the lock down. They found a morepork perched in a tree down in the gully.  They had a special time looking at it and it looking at them.  They were only 1 metre away from it! 

White-faced heron nesting

A white-faced heron chick. A difficult photo shot because of the
height above the ground and many branches. Photo by Owen Cole

In the old pines just west of Sexton Road and tucked in behind Rototuna Primary School a pair of white-faced herons have been nesting for the last few years. This year we took more interest in recording and observing them. They raised one chick to fledge. Other years they have had two. Old mature pine trees are an ideal nesting tree for them with lots of horizonal branches which to build their very unstructured nest of sticks. The height above the ground made observing and photographing difficult. This same height gives them a certain amount of protection from rats and possums (no pest control here) particularly in pine trees which have no appeal to either of the pests as a tree food source, but there are other threats. There was an observation in another area of a harrier hawk attacking and eating the contents of a white-faced heron nest. There was much commotion by the parents but to no avail. 

Kingfisher

Photo by Rex Bushell

While observing the tui nest, two kingfishers were high up on the dead willow branch. One, a parent, and the other a fledging following the parent and being feed cicadas. According to the bird photographer and observer G.J.H.Moon, the Kingfisher population took a dive with the introduction of the myna. The myna usually robs the Kingfishers nest after the four to five eggs hatch and the parents are away leaving the chicks unattended.

If there are normally four to five eggs, one wonders what happened to the other chicks? The photo is of another not quite fully airborne fledging, taken some days later in the same vicinity.  No sign of mum or dad though. 

Brown Quail

Brown quail. Photo by Peter Reese (Not in Mangaiti)

A brown quail was sighted around the pond on Tuesday 10th March with another two sightings over the next few weeks. These interesting little birds were introduced from Australia so they cannot be classified as native. They are common in Northland and classified as moderately common in the Waikato. They are not strong fliers and tend to have a rapid short flight when disturbed as this one did.

It would be good to have them establish themselves in the gully. They are ground nesters laying 7 – 12 eggs. Even if the rats and possums where taken out, the quail would still be vulnerable to hedgehog and domestic cat predation.  

Bat home installation is complete

We completed the bat home installation project with Tim Newton of Green Footprint, the arborist, installing the last three, of a total of twelve, on Thursday 5^th December. One was in a gum tree in the school yard of Rototuna Primary. Lots of classrooms came out to watch. The You Tube clip of bat activity in Sandford Park had been forwarded to the school, so many of the children were really excited to see the home go up.

We are very realistic, in that if we get one of the twelve occupied in the next few years, we will feel we have been successful.

For those interested this document of an overview of bats in New Zealand is linked to an interesting pdf

http://www.nzbats.org.nz/assets/files/NZ-Bats-An-Overview-vs-4.pdf

Cherry and Palm invasion

Cherries fruiting which cause
all the problem

One of the problems of restoring a natural area in the city is the invasion of some domestic plants. The two major ones in Mangaiti Gully are cherry trees and palms.  Their seeds are primarily distributed by birds. In Mangaiti these are getting out of control. In fact, we would go so far as to say if we, as an organisation, were not hand weeding them out they would be so invasive that cherries and palms would dominate the flora in the gully within ten years.

There are possible solutions that our Trust are starting to look at; however, none of them are simple to implement. 

Cherry seedlings coming up
through out the gully

Cherry Trees

In the meantime we do urge anyone that lives within a bird’s flying distance of the gully to remove any cherry tree that sets fruit. That is, that are not sterile. If you have the cherry to attract Tui I suggest a replacement would be either a Banksia integrifolia (available from our Trust) or a Kowhai. If it was a spring blossom you are after there are sterile varieties such as Pink Cloud, Prunus campanulate.

Palms

It is not clear if all three palm varieties that dominate our urban landscape are responsible for the invasive seedlings in the gully however, if you have palms and are able (not to high), the floret could be easily removed each spring to prevent the berries developing.

Vines effect of young trees

Weed vines (Honey suckle, Black Berry, Convolvulus) have a devastating effect on young trees. Not only do they smother them restricting their growth, but they also pull down the growing tip and, if left, cause disfiguration. Each spring and summer newly planted trees need to be “released”.  It is generally not necessary to weed the whole area but just to pull the weeds away from around the new planting until the growth of the plants (three to five years) are tall enough to shade out invasive weed growth.

Track and board walk pushing south

To give better access to the area south towards Sue’s flat we are clearing and extending the present track and board walk. We presently have a rough track cut along the lower gully slope but that is not suitable for wheelbarrows or for carting equipment along. This will give us easier access to several project areas that we are presently working on.

Track being cut up onto Haswell Place.

There is a high summer weed infestation in this section of the gully. These weeds set seed in autumn. Normally this would not be that much of a problem except that this gully has a high water flow during a rain event from a culvert that runs under Haswell Place. This washes weed seed downstream and is causing a reoccurring summer weed infestation along the length of the gully where the restoration is not yet grown enough to shade the summer weeds out.
We see the solution is to clear the perennial weeds (black berry and honey suckle) then plant to eventually shade out any summer weed growth. To do this we need access hence the building of the track.

Nikau berries potted up

To support our “Planting for Kereru” programme 644 Nikau berries / seeds were sown into individual ¾ PB bags and another 300 in seed trays. According to a search on google they take about three months to start germinating so we should know our success, or otherwise, shortly.