Welcome again to the Friends of Flora (FoF) newsletter. This one is No. 23 for January 2006, sent to keep you up to date with our efforts to bring the birdlife back to the Flora.

What's My Line? This month Maryann Ewers reports on Upper 'I' Line (numbers 43 to 83): This line runs through the main Flora track which leads to the Tablelands or Lower Junction. The line is on a 4WD track all the way to its finish at the Gridiron Creek. As this is our original core line, we do one minute bird monitoring every 200 metres. This information is fed into our computer data, to watch the bird number trends over the years - and to hopefully see them rise! During, or directly after rain, we are usually lucky these days to be able to see our large Powelliphanta snails out and about, and it is a great time of year to see New Zealand's largest Dragon Fly - Uropetala carovei flying around. As this is a main thoroughfare for trampers, it is usual to spend time talking to them about FoF, as most are very interested.

December Pest Kills (and a January Surprise...) FoF's pest kills for December 2005 have lead to a few nice round numbers: 4 stoats (total since February 2002 = 250!) 43 rats (total since February 2002 = 650!) 18 mice (total since February 2002 = 590) 3 possums (total since June 2004 = 162)

Meanwhile our DoC colleagues caught 14 stoats and 14 rats of those lines for which DoC has responsibility - D, E, H and I Line (84 and beyond)

While there was no addition to the score for sundry extras (cats, weasels etc) a report of a ferret caught on I Line in January has just come to hand. If confirmed, this is our first ferret kill. The ferret (Mustela furo) or polecat is the largest of the unholy trio of mustelids introduced to New Zealand in the late 19th century in a misguided effort to control rabbits. Its presence in the Flora is unusual as ferrets are largely encountered in pastoral habitats. More next month...

FoF on Air Both FoF chairman Chris Potter and secretary Maryann Ewers have been interviewed on Fresh FM in recent months. Their message to listeners was that while our work to date has lead to an increase in bird numbers in the Flora we still need volunteers, particularly those who are fit, agile and able to deal with traps and dead animals!

Ducks go 'Hi-Tech' A new approach to tracking the blue duck/whio living in Kahurangi has commenced with the fitting of transponders to the 12 juvenile birds at Peacock Springs. The transponders are about the size of a grain of rice and are inserted under the loose skin of the back of each bird's neck. They can then be read by a scanner, much in the manner of a supermarket item having its barcode scanned at the checkout! Following this exercise DoC staff have captured and fitted transponders to nine birds (including two juveniles) in the Rolling River and Nuggety Creek, at the Tadmor end of the Wangapeka Track. The transponder technolgy will mean that juvenile birds will not have to be regularly recaptured to have transmitter harnesses adjusted as they grow.

Rifleman/titipounamu Of the New Zealand wrens, only the rock wren and the tiny rifleman survive. Our wrens are of incredibly ancient descent. It appears they diverged from other passerines (perching birds) around 80 million years ago, making them even more ancient than the kiwis. There are four extinct NZ wrens, three of which were flightless (there are only four known flightless passerines - the other is a flightless bunting from the Canary Islands). The rock wren (Xenicus giliventris) is just hanging on, but we are lucky in that the rifleman/titpounamu (Acanthisitta chloris) is relatively abundant in both islands, and nowhere more than in the Flora at the moment. It seems that at every point one stops to listen the thin 'zipt-zipt-zipt' call can be heard and birds seen flitting around or spiralling their way up a beech trunk. This smallest New Zealand bird produces two clutches of two - four eggs between August and January. The chicks are raised communally, with each breeding pair having either a regular helper (an unattached male) or several casual helpers (offspring from previous clutches). Helpers feed the chicks and remove faeces from the nests. Tiny, but remarkable!

That's all from FoF for this month. Remember, monitoring takes place on the last two weekends of each month and our website is at http://www.fof.org.nz

Ivan Rogers FoF committee.