Welcome to the Midnight
Collective Broadsheet 165
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
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| puawhānanga |
We are at it again and here is our Christmas
post – in which we have collaged a flowering puawhānanga into film.
This is our
New Zealand clematis and it takes about a fortnight as the vine buds up in the
Spring, coming to full bloom.
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| Beginning to bud |
The white, so aptly named by Māori – as puawhānanga – the star of the forest (wao) - brings an incandescent plumage
to the forest. Locally you can begin to see this again in our forests of the
Tararua’s where 1080 has reduced the possum infestations. The vine, ice cream
to these Australian pests, is now making
a comeback.
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| Inhabiting the Kanuka - Puawhānanga clothes this coastal forest tree |
But the best place is Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf. Possum
never got out here so the effect on existing forest and regrowth areas on the
island makes a wonderfully startling Spring transformation.
It's been a funny
old Spring and early summer this year. 2017 saw drought conditions established
November through December and we were in swimming by the end of November. This
year has seen steady belts of rain so the landscape is looking deliciously
green which is good news for our local regenerating natives.
Track we were listening to while posting this? Well we've gone back to the fifties and early sixties and rat packer Dean Martin...
When we finally kiss good-night
How I'll hate going out in the storm
But if you really hold me tight
All the way home I'll be warm
He would stumble around on stage in his TV show, then lean on the piano which he would pretend to miss. But was he pretending? Have a few drinks this Xmas, you've earned them, but don't take it as far as the Deano...
