The Ngunguru School Wetland Classroom 2021

Today the Ngunguru School Year 3 and four children visited and spent their day at "The Ngunguru School Wetland Classroom". This is the wetland at our place in Old Mill Ln, Ngunguru. There were 58 children plus parents and teachers. There were five stations that the children rotated round. Ther stations were: Wetland plants and water quality, Wetland birds, Migratory fish and life in the wetlands, Exploring the kauri forest structure and Te Ao Maori in wetlands.

We were also blessed with the arrival of an Australasian Bittern. It is one of New zealands rarest birds and everyoane got to see it.

Further more as a result of fish trapping with the Gee Minnows traps a new species of fish was discovered. It ia a Gobi and new to New Zealand.

Mioweka Boardwalk at our place

 Construction of the Mioweka Boardwalk over our wetland continues. There is only about 20m left to join up to the bridge to complete this loop walk from the carpark. This loop joins the existing Mātātā Boardwalk. This wetland is perticularly well known for its high density of Mātātā. Commonly seen on trail camera are Spotless Crake (Pūweto), and Banded Rail (Mioweka)

The public are welcome to visit and walk over the boardwalk as well as into the Hugh Crawford DOC Reserve for the two bush tracks there. The timber for the boardwald has been donated by locals. For that we thank you very much.

On April 1st Years 3 & 4 will again visit their Wetland Classroom. Looking forward to that.

The yellow line on the map is the extension boardwalk. The green line is track.

Preserved Chilli

 Melva preserved some of our mild chilli today.

The Mioweka Boardwalk and Track

 Continuing the extension of our existing boardwalk across our wetland. The extension is to be part boardwalk and part track alongside the drain. This is to be called The Mioweka Track. The original boardwalk is called the Mātātā Boardwalk.

Boardwalk extention over our wetland

 We are extending the boardwalk over more of our wetland. This will be an improvement for all, especially for the Ngunguru School Wetland Classroom.

White Faced Heron and Banded Rail

 Our wetland at Old Mill Lane is a wonderful place to view our wetland birds. Here is White faced Heron and Banded Rail - Always in a hurry to somewhere.

Forest Gecko

We found this lovely little Forest Gecko on our path. It was really windy so we think it was shaken out of the kanuka nearby.

Cave Weta

 Cave Weta. We see these little fellows often at our place. This males body is about 15mm long. Very docile fellow. Its a real good jumper with those powerful legs.

Black Shag (Great Cormarant) in our wetland

 On Occasion our wetland stream is visited by this Black Shag, Today I managed to sneak close enough for some shots.