July 2025 Newsletter

July 2025 Newsletter
(Edition 105)

Upcoming Volunteer Trips

We have these midweek volunteer trips coming up, travelling by Dreamweaver from Pier Z:
Wednesday 20 August
Friday 19 September
Thursday 13 November
Friday 5 December
Friday 12 December
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:
Saturday 23 August (full)
Thursday 28 August (invasive weeds, planting, nursery)
Saturday 30 August (International Students on the Red Boat - leaders needed)
Thursday 4 September (planting, nursery, invasive weeds)
Sunday 7 September (invasive weeds, nursery)
Thursday 18 September (invasive weeds)
Sunday 21 September (endangered plants)

Individuals can book on any of these trips by registering here:
register or email operations@motuihe.org.nz. As we have limited space on each trip, please only register for a trip once you are sure you are able to make it

Volunteering Opportunities

Book Keeper
Our amazing bookkeeper has had to finish due to hefty time commitments, so we are looking for a volunteer to replace her. We use Xero to track our expenses, and it is relatively straightforward as our accounts are not complex. Time required is up to 10 hours per month over winter, and up to 5 hours per week over summer (Dec to March). The timing of when work is completed is flexible with only a monthly deadline to be ready for the Trust meetings.

Volunteer Co-ordinator
We’re seeking an energetic, people-focused Volunteer Coordinator to take ownership of our volunteer engagement programme, with a special focus on recruiting and developing leaders. This is a new role, and there is some flexibility about how much time is involved. We would envisage that you accompany our day-long trips to the island 2-3 times a month, as well as some admin work at home. Trips are on weekends as well as weekdays.

If you'd like any further information about either of these opportunities, contact operations@motuihe.org.nz.

Photo Competition

Don't forget that entries for our photo competition close on 1 September, so make sure you submit your favourite photos ahead of judging (info@motuihe.org.nz) or see our website for details (photo competition).

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A dotterel family (Hong Lim)

Honda Tree Fund Donation and Planting Day

We are very grateful to Honda NZ for their kind donation towards our project as part of the Honda Tree Fund. After several postponements, we hosted some of the Honda team and their families to a planting day on Saturday 26 July - we were very lucky to find a sunny day in amongst the rain. The team worked hard to plant a total of 237 trees at the top of Von Luckner's Bush, in an area now known as "the Honda Team site" - a mixture of kahikatea, pigeonwood, taraire, puriri, tawapou, totara and others.

After a magic lunch put together by Nadia and AJ, the team were treated to a walk through the Tieke track where they were rewarded by the sight of one of our resident tuatara basking in the sun.

Thanks again to the Honda team for their mahi and for their generous support of our project.

OBC Open Day

A very successful and busy day for OBC's Open Day on July 20, with reports of hundreds of visitors to the club grounds. The day was well-organised with displays of vintage cars and classic boats for people to view, a bouncy castle, a food truck and Legasea to name a few. Haines Hunter was taking people for a ride on their amphibious overlander - watching a vessel going forward down the ramps with no vehicle attached is an interesting concept to get your head around!

OBC have supported Motuihe Trust since 2002 and kindly offered us a display in the clubhouse. Many members and non-members came into the clubhouse, and a good number showed interest in the transformation of Motuihe. To have the opportunity to talk to Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson and Orakei Local Board member Sarah Powrie was excellent. They were both very impressed with the success of the project and were stunned by the Kakabeak story of the seeds coming from the last and now dead Kaipara plant.

Thanks to OBC for this great opportunity to interact with the members and public visitors (and thanks to Lois for manning the stand for Motuihe).
obc

5-Minute Bird Call Counts in September

Michaela will lead our 5-minute bird call counts again this year. The counts are planned for the weekend of September 13th and 14th, with a rain date of September 27th and 28th.

A working knowledge of bird calls is an advantage but not essential as training will be provided prior to the 5MBC weekend, and each team will have someone experienced with bird identification. You must be able to commit to an overnight trip and have good fitness to walk around the island for several hours each day. Places are limited. Please contact Michaela if you are interested: michaela.scarrott@bioresearches.co.nz.

Kiwi Call Counts

Our kiwi call team have been hard at work counting kiwi calls over some chilly winter evenings. This is part of our monitoring to make sure the 40 birds captured on Kapiti and released on Motuihe during 2009 and 2010 are doing well in their new home, and the hard work shows that the kiwi are clearly thriving. Some of the team were treated to 4 minutes watching a young kiwi on the edge of the track.

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We are often asked about how many little spotted kiwis live on Motuihe. Using the data generated over the years by our annual kiwi call counts, sightings of banded and unbanded birds in our trail cameras, and the knowledge of our resident experts, we estimate there are around 120 birds currently living on the island.

Over the past month, we heard some great news, with the discovery of a new population of little spotted kiwi on the west coast of the South Island:
1 news article
rnz article
All of the current populations in pest-free sanctuaries originated from 10 founder birds, so this discovery supplements a very limited gene pool giving the longevity of the species a greater chance of success.

New Homes for Our Penguins

Over winter, our penguin team took some time to install new nesting boxes for our kororā with all the comforts of home! This was my favourite - nicknamed The Rockery.

home

Nursery & Woolshed Refurbishment

Our working base is undergoing a refurbishment, making our accommodation more comfortable and the nursery ready for increased numbers of our endangered plants over the coming year.

Chris, Monica, David and Ian installed frames and tops to increase the number of benches in the shade house. This keeps the seedlings out of reach of pesky snails and slugs and is a more comfortable working height for volunteers.

nursey 2

A big thanks to Ian & Paul who installed a second set of steps which will aid access to and from the sleeping cubicles in the woolshed. Meanwhile, the kiwi call team worked hard to make a proper pathway to provide safe access to the deck.

nursey 1

Bumble Bee Nest

During our clean-up, we came across a bumble bee nest snuggled into some toi toi flowers in a black rubbish bag. We carefully buried the nest in a warm, dry position so that the bees can keep doing their thing once they emerge from their winter hibernation.

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Sunday 6th July - General Volunteer Day

A beautifully still day for our volunteers heading over, and we were welcomed with the birdlife extremely vocal along with superb views out to Coromandel, Little Barrier and Great Barrier Islands. We were joined by Seana (our DOC Ranger's wife), and our small team managed to plant 191 canopy trees, including Nikau Palms, Kahikatea, Kowhai, Tawapou, Pigeonwood and more at the top of Old Forest. The recent rainfall made for easy digging.

Simon and grandson Jaxon found a whopping two bags of mothplant pods along Tieke Track and dealt with any woollies they came across en route. Ajay, Varun and Mehdi headed out to Billy Goat Point to check what was happening at the Fluttering Shearwater sites.

Meanwhile, back at the woolshed Chris and Dave installed the repaired califont and investigated the gas stove problems. They were joined by the rest of the team after lunch to start cleaning up the southern nursery site, while some others pricked out Scandia seedlings in the nursery and replanted Nikau seedlings that the pesky pukekos had pulled out!

We were surprised to see kakabeak producing flowers very early this year - a great way to finish the day. To the newbie volunteers who joined us today, thank you for your energy and enthusiasm. We hope you'll come back.

Jaxon deals with a mammoth woollie nightshade - before and after (Simon Sheen)

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Our planters on the job (Lois Badham)

Sunday 13th July - Kākābeak Volunteer Day

The threatened plant team headed over to Motuihe for a packed day of tasks. The group split into teams - one, led by Chris Cotter continued the transformation of the southern nursery section. Old plants were cleared and space made for the coming growing season. Attention was also turned to the wires around the kākābeak, with dangerous unused wire removed and new ones put up above the plants to help support them to grow taller. Another team did magnificent work in the nursery pricking out seedlings. We have a large number of Scandia seedlings needing to be potted on, and the team pricked out over 900 plants in one day! A final team went around the island, labelling kākābeak planted this season and attending to plants in orchard sites, applying slug bait to keep them looking lush.

It is very rewarding to see the kākābeak beginning to flower for the year. We hope to have a strong flowering season and good seed setting so we can grow lots more plants! Some additional highlights from the day were a check-in of the mistletoe seedlings, which are sprouting tiny leaves, and the discovery of a little pixie-cap orchid (Acinathus sinclairii) growing on the island. Orchids help provide an indication of how a restoration is progressing as they self-introduce and provide increased diversity. This is the first orchid recorded since restoration efforts began, so it is a lovely sign that things are going well.