Alseuosmia Banksii (Toropapa) in Flower!

I took a stroll through the Hugh Crawford Reserve from the end of our boardwalk today. There is a forest of Toropapa but the surprise today is that some are flowering again and as usual the scent is fantastic. It seems that it can flower any time. of the year. I collected a handful of Toropapa berries also from the shrubs that flowered earlier and will have a crack at growing some. I think it is my favourite plant.

Return to The Ngunguru River

Sunday January 31st. This time Millan Ruka, his wife, Shirl and myself traveled from Clements Quarry all the way to Coalhill Ln. Mode of travel was mostly by Millan's inflatable waka,  by paddling, carrying, dragging and lowering the waka over rapids and waterfalls. It was a grand day out. It was a huge 11.5 hour day, 14 kilometre day on the river, our river.
There was only one mishap where I fell then slithered or washed down a chute of cascading water. Got a bit injured but not too bad. The chute is on the right in the photo.




On our last adventure down the river we viewed this huge columnar basalt boulder.




This time we found several more areas with basalt columns and this boulder above.

A Morning Meeting

On the 16^th April Dayna, an enthusiastic 13 year old birder and nature lover, arrived at the Matata Boardwalk in Old Mill Lane, Ngunguru early in the morning with her mother Wendy to observe Fernbirds.

The boardwalk crosses this estuarine wetland giving access to the Hugh Crawford bush reserve as well as providing an excellent viewing platform for the wetland birds.

It was a grey, windy morning and the birds seemed reluctant to show although we could hear them in many places over the wetland. Dayna’s camera, always poised for the shot but it did not happen. Some scampered in the rushes and also up into the saltmarsh ribbonwood for a look at us but not venturing into the open. We then moved to another site bordering the wetland where I had often seen the Fernbirds. This time they performed well and Dayna managed some great shots of an adult bird. We also observed a juvenile, so young it had not yet grown a tail and I managed to get a blurry shot. There was much calling, tisking and beak clicking. This was the first time Dayna had seen a Fernbird. Very exciting. It is encouraging to see younger folk so enthusiastic about and amongst our nature.

 

Piwak

We love our little fantails.

Day one for Piwak. This is it's first compost bin visit ever. This video is in slow motion. Maybe Melva is going to have a new garden and bin friend. It just hasn't been the same in the garden since Piwakawaka passed away last October after 6 years feeding at the bin. The garden has been quiet without its chatter.

Cicada

Unusual.A golden Cicada. This specimen is alive. Could it be infected with the parasitic fungi (Cordyceps Robertsii)

Sonya's Girls

On Saturday we moved bees from one of our hives into Sonya's new Flow Hive. We started by moving our hive to one side and placed the flow hive on exactly the same footprint our hive occupied. We then transferred the frames one at a time from our brood boxes to Sonya's brood boxes and then put her hive back together.
The bees immediately settled in and even the returning foraging bees went straight in. We could see through the side window that in no time at all some were exploring the new Flow frames.
All good and exciting. The exchange went very well.
Sonya's girls will live at our place and she will manage them here.
We are  all interested in how well this new Flow Hive System will work. It could be the future thing for amateurs who only have a few hives.

Matata - Fernbirds at The Riverbank Wetland

Yesterday evening and early this morning we went down to the boardwalk to observe fernbirds with our guests Peter and Meri. They were all over the place. Their calls are our dawn chorus there are so many of them. This movie only gives an idea of their behaviour. It was taken with a cell phone. If you have never seen a fernbird this is the place to be.

The Banded Rail Chick is growing.

The Banded Rail Chick is growing.

Waxeyes and Rails

Today Melva caught two Waxeyes preening in a Towai. We have not seen this before.
There is always a surprise at The Riverbank.

Our trail camera also caught the Banded Rail family in our wetland.

A kiwi Christmas at The Riverbank

Our beautiful Pohutukawa.  Christmas time at The Riverbank Homestay and B&B

It Looks Like We Will Get Some Blackberries This Summer

Yes. The blackberries are fruiting well. They are growing on our land beside the road at Old Mill Ln. Very precious to us they are. Looking forward to blackberry buckle, jelly, sorbet, muffins....

These are early blackberries and fruit at Christmas. We also have another king that fruit in February. Our bees are working the flowers now.

Col The Kiwi Continues To Visit - Matata Pair

Col the Kiwi keeps on returning to the hole under the ponga. We first saw Col during August 2015.

Also great to get a video of a pair of Matata (Fernbirds) in our wetland.

Our Ngunguru River 29th November 2015

This blog is an extra to the previous one.

To see all of the photos in order from the Quarry downstream go to our Google Drive

One of the most scenic areas that could be classed as being in the Tutukaka Coast is the Ngunguru River between Omaikao Road and Ngunguru Road. The river descends through a steep sided gorge for the whole 14km. For the whole distance the sides are covered with native bush with well established large trees. The larger ones being Kauri, Totara, Rimu, Taraire, Towai and Rewarewa. All typical  of Northland bush. The understory is interesting also where for the whole distance Taurepo abounds. As a bonus it was in flower. There is much Kawakawa, Kiekie, Kareao and loads of epiphytes. We also noted several Neinei and even one stunning little orchid in flower.

The river is quite stunning. There are beautiful quiet calm stretches with overhanging trees interspersed with small waterfalls and rapids. Some of the quiet hidden pools had a small group of Pateke.

In several places the basalt rock can be seen, The two most notable are a large basalt column boulder. and down near where we exited a straight face with columns at its base.

It is a difficult walk that requires some fitness. It took us about nine hours to complete cover  nine kilometres of river. We have five kilometres remaining to check out. We are looking forward to another big day on the river.

Ngunguru River Excursion - 29th November 2015

Ngunguru River Excursion - 29th November 2015
On November 29th at 8:15 am a group of four armed with GPS, Topographical map and a camera attempted to river walk, bush and bank struggle from the bridge at the end of Omaikao Rd to Ngunguru Rd fourteen kilometres downstream.
The flow was quite low. At a point near the basalt columns all the flow was passing through a 1500 by 300mm rock gap.
 After about 5 kilometres and 5 hours into the walk we decided that it would be prudent to leave the river at the River Rd ford and walk River Rd to the River Rd Bridge and then continue down the river to Ngunguru Rd thus missing about 5 kilometres of river. It was another 3.2Km to our exit point at Murphy’s farm.
We intend to return and walk the section we missed this time. It is worth noting that this trip down the Ngunguru River could also be managed in the summer with a small waka as there were many long pools divided by short rapid sections and waterfalls where the waka could easily be lowered over.
For its whole length the river travels through a steep sided, bush lined gorge including the first kilometre from Omaikao Rd where it travels through steep farmland. Throughout all the sections that we hiked it is very scenic. It is a very beautiful gem in our area. The larger trees were mostly Towai, Kauri, Tanekaha, Taraire, Rimu and Tawa. Much of the understory was Taurepo in bloom. This is the most extensive Taurepo coverage I have ever seen.
We noted very little birdlife. There were several small groups of Pateke of up to five ducks. In small numbers we also saw some Tui, Piwakawaka, Greenfinch, Riroriro, Mallard ducks and Eastern Rosellas. In the river we also saw that there were fresh water mussels, shrimp, Koura and one kind of small fish about 60mm long. In the flatter slower areas there were large areas of a grass like weed on the bottom.
Some cattle damage was noted in the earlier section at 35 36.4047S 174 25.9998E where they had been down to the water to drink. See the attached photos. The bush seemed to be quite heavily grazed by goats and pigs. In the steeper wall sections this caused frittering of the unstable wall that would easily erode in the rain. In all sections of river there was a considerable amount of fine sedimentation that heavily clouded the water when we walked over the gravel in the stream. One assumes that this is caused mostly by forestry runoff. Because of the nature of the river and its depth we were unable to check this through the farmed area.

Near the beginning at – 35 36.4062S – 174 25.9994E in the farmed area it was sad to see that gorse overspray had recently killed most of the Kanuka and Manuka as well as some tanekaha. See attached photos.

 All in all it is a stunning scenic river. One we wish to visit to see again and complete the trip.

Mrs Spider and Mrs Weta

You have seen these friendly fellows before. Since my previous blog the Nursery Web Spider has now laid and wrapped her eggs. We expect she will vacate the drum for the top of a shrub and build a nursery for the young. See this blog for a previous nursery.

Mrs Weta was found under a pottery head that we have on a stick in the garden. For a tree weta she is huge and fat! Hopefully she is fat with eggs.

This spider is cool

There is a Nursery Spider living in our cow poo drum that we keep for garden fertiliser. It has been there at least six months. When we dip water out for the garden it dives  under and hides down in the water until we have finished and it is clear to emerge. I blogged this kind of spider before when it had a nursery in a ponga by our deck.

A Trip to Auckland "Zoo"

We spent time at Auckland Zoo on Thursday and Friday. Most fascinating. We went for a walk through a beautiful valley park and also through the Domain where lots of humans wandered, seemingly doing nothing. It seems that the resident humans have created these tree filled places for their enjoyment. 

They even plant flowering plants for their colour and enjoyment.

Some have built nests deep amongst the trees with openings that they could look out from through the trees. We observed humans doing nothing other than walking about on the grass between the trees.

A few led tethered animals then let them run free on the grass. there seemed to be some kind of communication between the humans and these animals as the animals did not run away. 

Some humans  were holding hands. Supposedly part of a male and female bonding ritual. Later I saw some doing the same thing on paths crowded with humans amongst the tall buildings that others were coming and going from. 

They seemed very regimented in the way they followed and stayed on formed paths. There were noisy things moving fast between the paths. I could not discover any useful purpose in that. These machines went up and down, backwards and forwards? 

Some of the paths were steel tracks. Humans filed into big boxes that traveled on these tracks. Presumably they had reason to go to another place. Others were mobile and led into and out of buildings.

Some of the humans had other interesting behaviours. I observed one that had learnt to go to a box like thing in a wall where it could get a kind of token that could be redeemed for food and other things. Amazing behaviour, and an illustration that these animals can create and learn to use tools. 

I saw many humans walk past us with their right hand over their right ear talking to themselves. Others seemingly in control of the machines on the paths were doing the same thing.  Most strange and definitely appearing unsafe.

I also observed many humans feeding. This they did in a number of ways. Some ate noisily in great halls 

while others hid quietly  behind transparent walls with mates and looked out while eating and drinking.
I liked the way that these walls reflected the busy street scene.
Sometimes I observed humans just sitting. I  could go on and on about these strange behaviours that other animals don't do.

All in all, we had a Grand Day Out.