Cover photo:  Photo competition entrant: Georgia Fitzpatrick

(Edition 112)

Upcoming Volunteer Trips

We have these midweek group trips coming up, travelling by Dreamweaver from Pier Z:
Thursday 12 March
Friday 27 March
If you are a group interested in joining one of these trips (or another date), please email Simon at volunteermotuihe@gmail.com

We have these volunteer trips coming up, all travelling by water taxi from Okahu Bay:
Wednesday 18 March (invasive weeds)
Sunday 22 March (endangered plants - full)
Sunday 29 March (general volunteer day)
Sunday 12 April (invasive weeds, general volunteer day)
Saturday 18 April (endangered plants)
Thursday 30 April (invasive weeds)
Individuals can book on any of these trips by registering here: Registration
or email volunteers@motuihe.org.nz


Monitoring Cameras Update

We have a number of monitoring cameras around the island, and our keen volunteers regularly swap the camera cards to keep an eye on our taonga. Lois and Jackie have put together a collection of videos from some of the cameras:
Camera footage

youtube.com/watch?v=NBlQpl_CXPE&feature=youtu.be

What does nature get up to behind our backs!

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Volunteering Opportunities

We are looking for more recruits for our weeding and specialised weeding programmes.

Mothplant constantly needs seek-and-destroy; it is an ongoing battle to stop this fast-growing vine from smothering our beautiful native forest. Because of the terrain and the nature of the work, you need to be physically fit to be on the mothplant team, but it does save on gym costs and is more therapeutic!

We also have a number of new invasive weeds that we are controlling and hopefully eliminating before they become bigger problems. This work is not as physically challenging as mothplant control, but it still requires a reasonable level of fitness.

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2026 Photograph Competition

Everyone loved the photo competition last year, and we are all enjoying seeing the photos of the winners on our calendars!

We've decided to run the competition again this year, so get over to Motuihe and get snapping!
Details are here: Motuihe Photo Competition






Featuring: The Tieke Track

The Tieke track is a favourite with visitors to Motuihe: it is accessible and an easy walk, and showcases some beautiful forest and many of our rare species including tieke, kakariki, wetapunga and reptiles.

Our teams work hard to maintain the track, including keeping vegetation off the surface and sides, clearing culverts and keeping the drains clean to make sure water channels away effectively. Enjoy the track, it's a different experience every time you walk it.

Please remember not to pull weeds from the sub-surface of the track. The surface has been carefully compacted, and any holes formed allow water ingress, which quickly erodes the path and reduce its longevity.  Holes also allow weed seeds to work further down into the surface.

A big call out to volunteer Kevin and our amazing DoC Ranger Paul for the repairs to the damaged part of the track.  We expect to have the repair completed mid-April, including some new gravel which will be applied to the track.  As soon as the soil softens with some rainfall, we'll be clearing some of the drains - if you're keen to help, get in touch: operations@motuihe.org.nz






Saturday 31st January - OBC Picnic Day on Motuihe 
     
The OBC picnic day on Motuihe was well-attended and was enjoyed by all who went - the combination of the fabulous location, fantastic weather, BBQ lunch and activities proved to be a crowd-pleaser. The Motuihe Project provided tractor trips up to the woolshed for a guided walk of the Tieke Track to showcase the great work that has been done on the island.

The Outboard Boating Club has been a generous supporter of the Motuihe Project since the beginning, and we are appreciative of the ongoing support of the club and its members - it has been and continues to be a great relationship

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Saturday 7th February - General Volunteering Day

A water taxi full of enthusiastic volunteers set out for Motuihe on a day perfect for weeding - not too hot, not too cold. Following some of the way points identified in our drone survey, we worked our way up a small gully near Snapper Bay tackling mothplant as we went - a very satisfying morning, knowing that this area is now clear of flowering vines. 

After lunch in the woolshed, some of our team tackled another area of mothplant while Barbara and Jill checked in on 2 of our 3 known sites of Japanese Honeysuckle. Control work was carried out late last year, and it was great to know that this work has been effective. While there is some new growth of this invasive weed, it is much reduced and we'll be heading back to knock off anything left in the coming months.

Our penguin and dotterel teams headed out for the last monitoring for the breeding season. Our penguin team found lots of signs that penguins had molted already and had headed out to sea. Our monitoring over the summer led us to suspect that many of our kororā did not have chicks this season, and their early molting is a further indication of this.

     
Photos courtesy of Daisy Kirk

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Sunday 8th February - Kākābeak Volunteering Day

Our fabulous group of rare plants volunteers were in fine fettle for our rescheduled January trip. Monitoring of our kākābeak planting sites was due and teams set off across the island to check and measure our plants. It was heartening to see more survivors than our previous planting season, and lots of healthy new growth, likely helped by the rain we have had over summer so far. Our biggest kākābeak was recorded as having a massive 6m spread! Plants in our 'orchard' planting sites, which are grown for more seed, were also fed, snail baited and checked for unruly weeds. 

Those not out in the kākābeak plots were kept extremely busy in the nursery. Our first lot of kākābeak seedlings for the year were pricked out, producing more than 140 new plants. 70 coastal harebell (Wahlenbergia vernicosa) and a tray of white maire (Notelea lanceolata) were also pricked out. New seeds were sown, including plants not currently known on Motuihe: NZ cucumber (Sicyos mawhai), NZ carrot (Daucus glochidiatus), NZ spinach (Tetragonia tetragonoides), pukatea (Laurelia novae-zelandiae), more kākābeak and kohurangi/Kirk's daisy (Brachyglottis kirkii var kirkii). With all those vegetable-sounding names you would think we were growing a salad, but sadly for us most of these plants are not palatable to humans and are on the list of regionally or nationally threatened plants.

We couldn't be achieving all these good things for our precious native flora without our keen volunteer team so thank you all for everything you do!


At work in the nursery (Bella Burgess)


Shore spurge/Waiūatua (Euphorbia glauca) is also doing well at South Beach (John Laurence)

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Saturday 21st February - Kākābeak Volunteering Day

A very full water taxi of keen volunteers headed out to Motuihe. The team split into two, with Ben taking his helpers out to South Calypso for weeding around kākābeak plants. On their way back to the woolshed, the team checked on the mistletoe seed translocated last April onto Totara trees and located several that had cotyledons (an embryonic leaf in seed-bearing plants), which is a good sign that some of the seeds may have taken. John and his helpers tackled the South Beach kākābeak site. These plants are just stunning with amazing growth to the point where John disappeared into the greenery when trying to locate weeds. Lois' photo is a case of Where's John not Where's Wally! It's great to get a person in amongst these plants to get a perspective of how high they have grown. Sadly the weeds were also thriving however the team did a sterling job in clearing these away.

After lunch, the team weeded Calystegia, scattered Dichaelachne seed and completed kākābeak monitoring at Woolshed Cliffs. A good amount of calystegia cleared in 30 minutes. Lots of the kākābeak at this site are also looking good. Back in the nursery, volunteers sowed Wahlenbergia and the scarified kākābeak seed, secured the hole in the seedhouse to prevent the birds from getting through to the shadehouse, collected more kākābeak seed and fertilised the amazing crop of Scandia plants.
 
As time allowed near the end of the day, Japanese honeysuckle in two sites was dealt to and a small amount of Kanuka seed was collected. Kukuwai (freshwater) monitoring samples were taken by Fiona and Margaret who then opened the kiosk for ice cream sales at the end of the day. Our enthusiastic volunteer Kevin cleared back the clay dam drains. If that hadn't tired him out, he also cleared around the woolshed/nursery with the weed eater. The area is looking great Kevin.  

To all the 17 volunteers onboard, well done and thank you for all your hard work. An amazing amount of work was achieved and for some a well-deserved swim at the end of the day.