Riverbank News

The Weta House seems to be well populated with up to seven Weta at any one time. There are males and females. I hope they make it home and raise little Weta.

A third bunch of bananas is forming. We plan to plant a whole lot of suckers out soon. Need more palms for more bananas.

The bees are in winter mode but still bringing in pollen. The newest hive has a feeder on top. The will need a little help to get through the winter. The first hive will probably need feeding also.

The Matata Boardwalk across our wetland to the Hugh Crawford Reserve

At last! The boardwalk has started. I have three sections in. About 20m total. The total distance is about 100m. It is being constructed from recycled timber. See photos. The logs are being laid cross ways to the main bearers and are the foundation for the deck. I have about 50m of made up sections. I drag one at a time by car to the site then with the use of a crowbar and a chain block pulling against an anchor on the other side of the wetland I manage to pull the sections into place.
When completed the public will have access to the Department of Conservation Hugh Crawford Reserve. Normally there is little easy access into the reserve from Ngunguru Road. There is good parking at our place and one can explore the reserve from the boardwalk.

It is nice to know others are using my Waiotoi Estuary bush track.

Bananas!

I am getting excited. This is our second banana bunch. I can hardly wait. Our bees are feasting on the nectar too. (Hilton)

Rain at last and Autumn Harvest

The rain came. The most significant since December. Enough to make the Californian Quail seek shelter by our front door.


Quail sheltering at our front door

We have also had the best pumpkin harvest ever with more to come.

Organic Squash and Australian Butter Pumpkin cross with whatever.



The Mackerel Forest Track - Te Araroa

Toady we walked the Mackerel Forest Trail from Ngunguru Ford Road to Pataua North Road. This Trail is one small part of the great Te Araroa Trail from Cape Reinga at the top of the North Island to Bluff at the southern end of the South Island.

Much of the Mackerel Forest Track is through clear felled pine forest. However, the valleyalong the Waitangi River and the Taheke River is quite lovely. Very peaceful and nice and cool on a hot day as it wanders along beside these streams through native bush. There was an abundance of bird life. Especially notable on the trail were fantails, tui and yellowhammers.

Ohuatahi - Pataua North

On Sunday Tahi Honey had an open day as they do every Easter Sunday. This is free for everyone. While we are interested in bees the real attraction here is the hiking the well organised trails over the 700 or so acres of bush, pasture and wetlands that Tahi have developed. It has been made into a wonderful parkland.

The most spectacular walk is up to the top of Ohuatahi, the highest point on the land where one has views of the Pataua Estuary, North up the coast to Ngunguru Bay and South to Whangarei Heads area including the Maro Tiri Islands.

OhuaTahi

View North from Ohuatahi

View to Pataua

Pampas - The weed

Our bees think that that weed we all love to get rid of (Pampas grass) is a good supply of pollen. There is 12 bees in first photo below.

Bananas One Week Later

I can hardly wait!

The Bees love the flowers too.

Bees and Bananas

What a summer. It is dry, dry, dry and fine, warm and sunny. A real old fashioned summer.
Whats new? Melva has been mulching and watering the Banana palms and now one has started to flower. It already has one hand of bananas forming. Fantastic! Can't wait to start eating them.

 
It is fruit bottling time of the year so we have been busy preserving peaches and pears, tomatoes. The garden started cranking up late this year as it was cold before Christmas.

Bumble Bee House

We also have another beehive and today Hilton made a bumble bee house that we have down by our garden.

Because it was nice and hot and dry the whole Califirnian Quail family survived. They raised 10 chicks. At the moment they are roaming all over Rattys Landing and are fun to watch. They are almost fully grown now.

A Visit to The Whangapei Harbour

Monday 28th was a public holiday so we took a day off and drove the 185Km to Parawenga on the Whangapei Harbour.
The main objective was to walk the Golden Staircase. Out of season for the Kowhai and its golden bloom for which this track is noted but well worth the walk anyway for its stunning views of the Whangapei Harbour and entrance. The hills are big and the views south into the Warawara Bush Reserve Reserve are woerth the walk. It was 9.7Km and about 2 hour 30minute return to the highest point on the track. The coast is probably about one more hours walk.
The track starts as a beach walk then climbs along a ridge heading west to about 220m then descends to the coast.
Visit the old church near the old Pa site. We must return and camp away a night or two and walk out to the coast.

Pipiwharauroa chick

Pipiwharauroa

Grey Warbler

On Monday I went out to investigate an incessant high pitched calling as in a chick wanting to be fed sound. After some looking some looking I discovered a Shining Cuckoo chick being fed by a Grey Warbler adult. Even at that age it had a prison striped front.

White Christmas

Pohutukawa

Kanuka

In New Zealand we nearly always have a red Christmas as it is the time for our Pohutukawa to bloom. In the north in all the towns and along the coast they show off their crimson. It is also the time for Kanuka to flower. This year all the Kanuka have bloomed heavily. Our deck has been snowed with its small white petals as is all the ground near the trees. A white Christmas.

We Have Bees at Last

Last night we drove over to Dargavill and collected our first hive of bees to keep in our garden.
Already we watch the ladies come and go from the brood box. Fascinating. We watch them bring in pollen and also beat off intruding bees from other nearby hives.

Wonderful to have our own to look after.

The garden is all a buzz

Its been a very busy time for the birds in the last few weeks.
Full time collecting food for the chicks and then having to feed themselves.
I had the privilege of watching a fantail chick take its first bath. It had watched an adult fantail take a bath and decided it was a good idea. However, it took a while. First off the toes went into the water and it leaped back as if it got quite a fright, several more toe dips and then a little further in, a couple of flicks through the water and then it was full immersion, a very quick one at that and only the once.

Then there are the bees. Always working for the good of the hive, industrious collecting pollen, nectar and water. Bees need a lot of water in the summer months and early spring. It is very easy to make a water trough for bees, and bird baths work quite well too, especially if they are the rough concrete ones so the bees won't slip into the water.  Ours is just a plastic container with the top cut off leaving a tray that we have put rocks and small bits of blocks in it. I have put some hard foliage in so if the bees fall into the water they can scramble out onto it.

Our bees gathering water for the hive

Its lovely working to the hum of the bees. Later morning the birds are still doing a bit of singing including Matata in the wetland.

Wild Folwers

Now is the time of year for wild flowers. Our road verges are one of the best places to view natures work. Many are classed as pest plants but they still look wonderful.

Bludgers in the bird world

An interesting observation this Sunday afternoon. Tui was chasing a Fantail out of the trees at the eastern end of the house. I growled at it and wandered off to return a bucket  to the garage and Tui arrived at the totara trees where last year  we had sparrows nesting. This year we discouraged them by removing the nests as they were building them,  as sparrows are really a nuisance around the house and the B&B.
As Tui flew into the tree a sparrow was clearly agitated and was trying to keep the Tui away. Looking up I saw a nest and was thinking it may belong to Tui.
It did not, and what I saw made me smile, one bludger taking from another.
Sparrows are known by most as the rats of the sky and will scrounge food from anywhere and are very hard on the stick insects. However,  they can eat all the cicadas they want as they do quite a bit of damage to the fruit trees in this area.
So back to Tui. Tui saw the nest of material that would obviously suit its nest and wound itself around the branch and stole a great beak load of material from sparrows nest.
Then the tenacious Sparrow chased off after Tui. I guess it was going to try and get the nest material back. Good luck Sparrow.

Our Wetland

This is our Wetland viewed from our lounge window. Especially in the morning we can hear Matata from the deck where I took this photo.