The Best Christmas Video Ever – from Billy T.

 Midnight Collective 

Working for our wetland birds

Welcome to our Christmas video for 2021. 

We couldn’t resist our tūī’s again this year which have been ever increasing in numbers. They move around a lot and are bolstered by Kapiti Island residents flying over.

But what a trial of a year for everyone though we’re nearly through it now and things looking more promising for the year to come. Everywhere on these islands starting to loosen up, though not without misgivings, because that could change pretty quickly.

We are sending out a big tēnā kōrua (thankyou) to our visitors who are continuing to check us out. We aren’t posting regularly and this is deliberate for we are continuing to work down here. 

Despite the dunelake beginning to reform, our waterbirds haven’t returned. We have seen one duckling brood emerge (there used to be 8-10) who Mum pretty quickly pulled out of the area. Then only one pukeko chick which is surprising. 

Pukeko’s rule this roost, but they have become very wary and we think it’s probably because the previous barriers of fence and blackberry have gone. This is allowing dogs to roam more freely through the area and while most owners are really good, it only takes one…

The good news is that we now have a significant native wetland understory maturing in the area, but there’s willow, poplar and macrocarpa seeding up through it and these will take over now the NZTA weeding programme has finished. Our focus has shifted from  birds to vegetation. So we are hard at work trying to control these infestations.

The NZTA plantings are limited to 5 or 6 undergrowth species and concentrated in areas where the public are plentiful so we are busy trying to build our wonderful Kiwi species variety back into it, hence our reluctance to go public (a contractor mowed down five kahikatea seedlings another NZTA contractor had planted but what can you do!!!)

So it’s one day at a time with the big news this year being a piwakawaka nest (fantail) established in one of our  new plantings… This is such a delight and augurs well for the future.

And the voice of today? Has to be Billy T. of course. Can you pick the te reo Māori verse?

Meri Kirihemete