Hello all, I hope your year is off to an awesome start. This spring/summer has been great for growing and I am pleased to say that the trees we planted around the lake last winter are looking great and many will be above waist height by the end of the growing season. Things are on track for our planting this coming winter too which will include planting 20,000 plants. With the help of some awesome volunteers from D.O.C., Fish & Game and the Ornithological Society of New Zealand and wider friends we started the new year by doing a baseline survey of the Spotless Crake numbers around the lake and we were pleased to find 21 separate territories which puts estimated numbers at around 40-45. This is the first complete lake survey that has been done on the lake and will give us a good reference point to know what results we get in the future with predator control and habitat restoration. We are planning to repeat the surveys in the next spring so I will let everybody know that is keen to help. In the next month another 600m of lake shore will be newly fenced off from stock including a biodiversity hotspot which contains 2 Bittern territories, a Fernbird territory and possibly Spotless Crake. As well as the fencing approx 3 ha. of Willow will be poisoned to open up for planting in the coming years and give the existing natives some breathing space. The plan for our big planting session is to do the bulk of the planting with the help of an organization called Conservation Volunteers New Zealand. This will be done over the last week of May and the first week of June. On the saturday 31 May we are going to hold a big community planting day that will start at 8:30 with the aim to start planting by 9 and then have a break for lunch. At BYO Lunch time we will have a few speakers sharing the history of the lake and also the vision for its long term restoration. After lunch we will have another few hours of planting until around 3-4 at which point we will call it a day and have a BBQ Dinner and enjoy some live music as a thank you to everybody for helping us plant for the day. Lake Runanga designer t-shirts will also be on sale (to help fund the restoration work). People can also come just for the meal and music for a donation towards the Lake restoration. I will be doing up a flier and emailing with more specificity closer to the date. I would like to make a shout out for anybody that is keen to help with specific tasks on our planting day ei, cooking, meal prep, flier drops, and or anybody that could donate any food for the BBQ as we are expecting over 100 people. Mutton, Lamb, Beef, Veges, Salads, Desserts? If you are keen to help in any way let me know. As always I will be in touch and thanks again to everybody who has helped in all your different ways. Kindest regards Bernie Gunn. A long FB post I know but all good info :)
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 05:33:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015