Welcome to the Friends of Flora (FoF) December 2006 newsletter sent to keep you in touch with our efforts to bring the birdlife back to the Flora Stream section of the Kahurangi National Park.

Thanks, Lions. A big thank you to the Lions Foundation for their grant of $1600. This money will be used to purchase more traps to keep introduced predators in check to allow the recovery of the Flora's birdlife.

Reminders. A couple of friendly reminders to team leaders and others....

Please return all completed monitoring sheets to the in-tray in the Moutere gear shed as soon as possible after each monitoring. If this isn't possible, phone Bill Rooke on (03) 5289054 or email him fof@fof.org.nz with the relevant details. This will ensure we are able to keep an accurate tally of our pest kill.

Also, if you have (like I do!) any green egg 'suitcases' hanging around in your shed please put them to good use next monitoring or return them to the gear shed - we're running low on them.

And for those needing inspiration for a late Christmas gift there are still one or two copies of David Young's superb book 'Whio' available for the discounted price of $34 (15% off the retail price). Add $1.50 for postage and packing if you can’t take delivery in person. Post a crossed cheque with your order to Friends of Flora Inc., 35 School Road, RD 3 Motueka.

Northern rata - our 'Christmas tree' The Graham Valley road to the Flora car park will now be providing good views of many very large northern rata in full flower. Red flowers are not a common feature of New Zealand flowering plants - most are white - and point to birds being the favoured pollinator. Our rata and the pohutakawa tend to follow a two year flowering cycle, with a spectacular flowering one year being followed a sparse one the next. This year looks to be more spectacular than sparse.

Merry mistletoes. Continuing the festive theme, our native mistletoes will also be flowering soon. Keep an eye out for tubular red flowers on the ground between now and late February, note the distance and direction from the nearest trap and email the info to Chris Potter chrisjpotter@hotmail.com Three species are present, though not now abundant in the Flora. Scarlet mistletoe (Peraxilla colensoi) parasitising silver beech, red mistletoe (P. tetrapetala) on black and mountain beech and yellow mistletoe (Alepis flavida) also on black or mountain beech.

Pest parade. The pest kills for November 2006 were:
Stoats - 4 (total 327 since February 2002)
Rats - down to 28 from the October peak of 60 (total 1107)
Mice - 32 (total 726)
Possums - 4 (total 230 since June 2004)
and one weasel (total 7).

For the same period in 2005 we got 1 stoat, 30 rats, 18 mice and 9 possums and for November 2004 we scored 2 stoats, 15 rats, 2 mice and no possums. Which makes this month's tally up, but still broadly comparable to that of preceeding years.

More from FoF next year. The Fof committee hope you had a safe and happy Christmas and will continue to do so in the New Year. Remember, monitoring weekends are the last two weekend each month

Ivan Rogers FoF Committee