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.

Hoppy Spider

 Melva found this beautiful fellow on a chilly plant.

Monarchs

Our lounge at the moment with about 10 Monarch Chrysalis under way. We take the caterpillars inside to protect them from the wasps and South African Preying Mantis until they can fly away. This one emerged today.

Mioweka (Banded Rail) Gets a Meal

Fishing, fishing.....

Nursery Web Spider

You have to love this lady. She is so very protective of her eggs that when I touch her she does not move away. There is a large egg ball aout one centimetre in diameter inside the web below her. She will stay there every day until the young leave the nest.

Spotless Crake Chicks in Our Wetland

We have an addition to our wetland population by two Spotless Crake chicks.

Wonderful to see them so small running about after the parents.
https://youtu.be/prcJzhMagc8

Love to see Pateke and Mioweka in our wetland

Our Trail camera caught these fellows. The Pateke are busy feeding and the Mioweka was spooked by Kotare.
Pateke https://youtu.be/xgI8tlHEmCo
Mioweka https://youtu.be/1d4iTkVruNk

Homegrown Cayenne Pepper

Melva's beautiful sun dried homegrown Cayenne Pepper

Bittern

So cool to see Matuku in our wetland last week. Caught on camera trap.

Spotless Crake in our Wetland

10:53am on the 27th April our trail camera caught this Spotless Crake in our wetland right by the boardwalk. Old Mill Ln, Ngunguru. Love these shy little guys.