Sir Peter Blake DOC Ambassadorship Week 2
This week kicked off with a busy Waitangi Day in Saint Arnaud. I ventured down to Lake Rotoiti around 9am to discover the crowds of people enjoying a beautiful morning out on the lake. At any one time there were around eight boats out on the lake and a couple at the shore. People were watching the eels from the wharf, swimming, kayaking, paddle boarding, wake boarding, water skiing, out on ski biscuits and sunbathing. It was a rare sight for us here considering it is currently the end of the tourist season when everyone is back at school or out in the National Park enjoying the many walks on offer. I went off to photograph some of the local birds off the bellbird walk, I saw bellbirds, fantails and tui. Sitting in the peaceful forest was a wonderful start to my Waitangi Day. Later in the day we (Marie and I) enjoyed a picnic at the lake, we talked to a few of the tourists passing through and then went off on an adventure up Black Hill and to check out Rotoiti Lodge where I stayed for a university field trip last year.
Our first day back at work for week two was Wednesday, when we went out to monitor the honeydew density and wasp nests. I was sent along the Lakehead track with Graeme (a local DOC ranger). We had two spots for honey dew monitoring leading up the hill on cut tracks (not open to the public). These were very dense areas with some wonderful deep bogs under cutty grass and young Totara trees. Bush lawyer also decided to make another appearance. For reference, bush lawyer is an evil plant full of spines which are left in your skin if you don’t realise that you are caught and try to walk away/ break free. You’d think that you would get good at spotting it, but it is great at tangling itself into other trees and hiding away until it’s suddenly wrapped around your leg. Honey dew is a key food and energy source for our native birdlife, but unfortunately the introduced wasps in the area have also taken a liking to this. The high density of wasps in Nelson Lakes has meant that our natives are being starved of this resource and are forced to find other, less plentiful food resources. The honey dew is excrement from a special kind of insect that burrows itself into the tree bark, the scale insect. When burrowed into the bark the scale insect taps into the tree xylem which is highly concentrated with sugars. The honey dew forms in little droplets on the end of a scale insect anal filaments which hangs like a fibre outside of the tree bark. When monitoring the honeydew density, we visit marked trees (24 trees) in two local areas, one of low wasp density (after wasp baiting) and one of high wasp density (an area which does not receive wasp baits). These sites are first visited before the wasp baiting occurs, then 10 days after the operation has finished and then a month later. They have marked out areas on these 24 trees and we count the number of honey dew drops within this area. The results are then recorded and compared to the high/ low wasp density area. From the data we can also compare the density before and after wasp operations to check whether the wasp control is helping to increase the honey dew amount. For the wasp nest monitoring we went to specific nests which had been found prior to wasp operations, the monitoring times work the same as the honey dew with a before, a week after and a month after record. We counted the number of wasps both entering and exiting these nests. Even when nests are marked, they can be very hard to identify as they are so small and usually right by the roots of a tree or a fallen log. Luckily, we got away without any stings this time round. After returning to the DOC office we then went to take down another area of wasp baits and continued to make some of our stoat tracking tunnel lures with salted rabbit in wire bags.
On Thursday we had our most physically challenging day so far, although we were given the easiest of the tracking tunnel routes. We were sent up into Big Bush on the cut tracks to complete four tracking tunnel lines. We were placing the ink cards into the tracking tunnels with peanut butter smeared at each end. These were specific to attracting rats and mice. They run through the tunnel to get the peanut butter at either end and walk over the ink which leaves little footprints on the cards. Thee would be left out overnight. The reason why our day was so challenging, as we found the next day was that we had gone off track by about 100m as we couldn’t see our next track marker. This chosen route took us up a very steep hill after which we had to come down to our line when we saw a marker. Lesson learnt, the next day we did not make that mistake. The last line on our track was also over treefall which made for an interesting ninja warrior such course climbing under and over a fallen tree maze. Along the way we were surrounded by beautiful fantails, robins, bellbirds and tomtits. At one time we counted seven fantails surrounding us, one of which was a beautiful, fully black fantail. We saw black fantails on three separate occasions in this day. When back at the carpark we learnt another great lesson, to always charge your radio. Luckily, we had staff contact numbers to ring for a pick up and resorted to these.
Friday was also spent in Big Bush, this time we took two hours off our time as we stuck very closely to the track and made sure not to go off via the GPS. We were taking in the tracking cards from yesterday and marking whether the bait was taken from either end and whether there were prints to be analysed later. On two of the lines we were also resetting tracking cards, this time with fresh rabbit meat in the middle of the ink pad to attract mustelids (stoats). These are to be left out for three days. After we returned to the office we continued to create our stoat lures with the salted rabbit. These are going to be set out next week and will be left there for 21 days. We also cleaned one of the work vehicles and checked its WOF, kilometres, battery, lights and oil. After work we were asked whether we would like to participate in a fun race as part of Waka Ama, Tuna E Hoe Ana (10th Anniversary), Nelson Lakes. Of course, we were keen! How often do you get the opportunity to be part of such a unique and cultural event? That night we met up with a couple of my climbing friends from Taupo and we went to find a massive boulder to climb. There are two climbing boulders here in Saint Arnaud, now we have ticked one off. We spent about an hour bouldering before heading back for dinner and cards. When walking back we were amazed by how clear the sky was and how many stars we could see. So, we decided to stay up until 1:30am taking astro-photos and stargazing. Because Saint Arnaud is so isolated it has barely any light pollution, making it a perfect place to stargaze!
On Saturday we got ready to head down to Waka Ama. I took my camera down to document the event and was approached by one of the event organisers to take photos for their website and newspaper. So up until our race I was taking photos and making the most of the event. Everyone was so well set up with their gazebos, chiller bins, tonnes of kai and their wakas ready to go. Most waka could fit six people.
Basic Commands In The Waka
Hoe kei runga – Paddles up (above your head)
Hoe ki arite – Set up your paddle in the ready position
Hoe – Paddle
Hup – Change sides after one more stroke
Kia mau – Stop paddling
Rangimarie – Peace – stop paddling
I absolutely love this event and am thankful for this opportunity.
On Sunday it poured with rain, we stayed in bed as long as we could before getting up and into winter gear. I did some photo and video editing, reading and took the time to relax.
Once again, a big thankyou to the Sir Peter Blake Trust and the Department of Conservation for these awesome opportunities.
