At last, it's Spring and here's the Friends of Flora (FoF) newsletter for September 2006. We send this out (mostly) each month to keep you in touch with our work of bringing the birdsong back to the Flora.

Signs of Spring. The first screeches of Spring's long-tailed cuckoos/koekoea are beginning to be heard in the Flora. At lower altitudes the tree fuschia/kotukutuku is in full flower and higher up in the Flora just coming into leaf. At the bush margins the native clematis will soon be showing splashes of white from its large panicles of mildly scented flowers. The ice has melted, the snow is recceeding and the constant song of the robin/toutouwai, bellbirds and tomtits show breeding is under way.

Aussi Ausi Aussi! cheep cheep cheep! While we often accuse Australians of highjacking New Zealand icons (Phar Lap, Crowded House, Russel Crowe etc etc) we ourselves are happy to celebrate many Australian bird species as our very own. Pukeko, harrier/kahu, kotuku/white heron, pied stilt, kotare and even the elusive banded rail are all present in Australia. Of the birds seen and heard in the Flora the fantail/piwakawaka, silverye/tahou and the morepork/ruru are all essentially Australian. The grey warbler/riroriro has many close relatives in Australia and even our Nestor parrots, the kaka and kea, are thought to have an Australian lorikeet-like ancestor. The piwakawaka has three races in New Zealand and five in Australia, where it is distributed throughout the continent. Its common name there is grey fantail, cranky fan or mad fan! From personal observation the New Zealand fantails are an improvement on the original - more robust with stronger markings. Recent arrivals include the white-faced heron, welcome swallow and the pestillential spur-winged plover. While the prevailing wind remains a westerly and New Zealand becomes more Australia-like due to land alteration we can expect the 'Aussi invasion' to continue.

Graptolites. Much of Lodestone is composed of Ordovician graptolitic shales which, at 460 - 470 million years old, are among New Zealand's oldest rocks. A Graptolite (not a diet fruit drink!) is an extinct floating marine colonial animal a little like a jellyfish. The fossils look like bits of tiny fretsaw blades about 10 or 20 mm long and are the squashed impressions of the internal skeleton of the colony, originally made of a fingernail-like substance but mineralised with silica during the process of fossilisation. Identical fossils are found not only Fiordland and Kahurangi but in Victoria, supporting the theory that New Zealand once lay between SE Australia and Antarctica. If you find any in the flaking shale of Lodestone remember it's a National Park and what you find there stays there.

August trap catch. Here are our total predator kills for August.

Stoats; just the one (318 in total since Feb 2002)
Rats; 42 (total 989)
Mice; 8 (total 670)
Possums; 7 (total 217 since June 2004)
with no addition to the tally for other pests such as weasels (6), ferrets and cats (1 each).

Rat tunnel renewal. At nearly five years old, some of our rat tunnels are starting to look very tatty. Thanks to the Motueka High School rat trappers replacement tunnels are now available and FoF volunteers will be putting these out in the field as needed. Titch has volunteered to mend any salvagable tunnels and one of Chris Potter’s team – Bill Boxhall, has offered to look after any rat traps that aren’t working and repair as necessary. A trial of easy-to-set plastic traps has shown they are effective in catching rats. A big thanks to all involved.

More from FoF next month.

Ivan Rogers FoF Committee