Dear Friends of Flora (FoF) and supporters. Here is email newsletter No. 5, sent to keep you up to date with our efforts to bring the birdlife back to the Flora.

Theft Control The matter of the 10 stolen Fenn traps was well publicised and this, together with some 'thief-proofing' last weekend, should make further thefts less likely.

Annual General Meeting. This will now take place from 7.30pm on Thursday 27 May at Community House, Motueka (in the carpark where the market is held). Please ignore my earlier advice that it was to be on Wednesday the 26th.... You are all (still) welcome so please come.

Duck Update. Much the same as last month eally. Two whio are still unlocateable and 6 are locateable and are regularly observed feeding and being generally active. One female bird is now down at Bullet Creek keeping company with a resident male whio. DoC plan to weigh the locatable birds and check their transmitters this week. FoF members have received some telemetry training from DoC and will continue to assist with monitoring their comings and goings in and around the Flora Stream.

Congratulations Titch! Dave Klement, one of the founding Friends of Flora and known to all as 'Titch' has been awarded $1000 from his employer, Carter Holt Harvey. Titch was selected the winner of this in-house Australasian-wide competitiion by putting in writing how his local project, in this case his work with FoF, benefits the community and/or the environment. And yes, he will be handing the cheque over to FoF!

Pesky Progress I don't have the figures from our last monitoring to hand so the totals stand at 155 stoats, 253 rats, 441 mice and a handful of other assorted pests trapped since Feb 2002. Those of you with an eye for detail will note that these are not exactly the same as those in our last email newsletter (154, 249 and 440) but an influx of rats at the carpark end of the National Park led us to have an interim monitoring on that stretch which netted a few 'extras'. Full progress report next month.

That sems to be all the news for May. We'll talk to you in June.

Ivan Rogers, FoF Committee