Habitat Trip

On Thursday 16th November, Rūma Kereru and Rūma Piwakwaka had a field trip to Hokitika beach to learn about Kororā Little Blue Penguin and to Wadeson Island to learn about whitebait habitats.

We all gathered on the beach at the northern end of Hokitika where we met Lucy from the West Coast Penguin Trust. 45 students and 13 adults made a very large group of people!

Our first job as penguin rangers was to look for foot prints on the beach and identify who they belonged to. Tasman really enjoyed looking for tracks. Bede liked learning about the different types of prints and being in the sun.

Next we identified some Kororā prints. 

They always go in a pretty straight line from the dunes to the sea.

We made some plaster casts of the footprints we found. For lots of us this was our favourite thing.

After we had had morning tea, we went to Wadeson Island and learnt about whitebait and restoring their habitat with Petra from Westland Milk Products. There are now lots of breeding sites for the whitebait at Wadeson Island.

This is a video Mrs Locky took at low tide a week before our visit. Whitebait are a bit scared by noise and movement so they were difficult to spot on our trip but they are there!

Rūma Kereru building Kororā nesting boxes

On Friday 10th November we all had a go at building nesting boxes. Mrs. Locky and her daughter Grace had cut the wood and predrilled and labeled all the holes to make it easier for students to assemble.

It was like a 3D puzzle and was pretty hard to put together. 

Everyone worked hard as a team listening to each other's ideas and taking turns. 

Altogether we made 6 nesting boxes for the West Coast Penguin Trust. Lucy from the WCPT was there to help and she told us that the nesting boxes protect the eggs, nesting parents and the hatched chicks. She had a photo of a chick hanging out in a nesting box last week while its' parents were out at sea feeding.

Web of Life

On Friday we had some games and activities teaching us about our Kororā West Coast Little Blue Penguins and what impacts on them.

We were each given a card with an animal or place on it. Starting with the Kororā, who held a ball of string, we had to find someone or something that impacted on us. We then held onto the string and threw the ball of string to that person and we created a web. 

Here is an example of the web: Kororā 🠞fish🠞 seal 🠞wave🠞sand🠞sedge pingao 🠞banded dotterel

When everyone had a turn, one person pulled on the string and we could all feel it demonstrating how everything is connected by the web.

Blue Penguin Game

The students had to cross the land and sea to make it safely back with a bean bag. The winning team was the group who had the most bean bags. We had two predators whe represented dogs and humans.

Designing nesting boxes for Kororā - little blue penguin

 

Junior Gardening

The junior school have been busy in the gardens last term. We were lucky enough to have Kai Puku come and support us with our gardening.

Conservation Week

To mark the beginning of Conservation Week 2023 Piwakawaka decided to get their hands dirty.  We thickened up the plantings at the St Albans gate with more hebe. It is looking really great and we are looking forward to seeing this grow up over the next few years. Hebe are great for attracting bees to our school grounds and the flowers on the hebe will make the entrance way attractive for our visitors.

  

We learnt how to plant the plants to give them the best chance of survival. First we cut away the carpet that has been laid to suppress the weeds. When planting the hole needs to be the size of the pot you are transplanting from. You don’t want it too deep, but the roots need to be at the same level as the ground. Then you loosen the soil by pressing on the side of the pot gently and turn the pot upside down to get the plant out. Put the plant in the hole you have dug and place the soil back around the plant.  Once the plant is in the soil you need to compress the top layer by gently standing close to the plant without standing on it. This helps the plant stay upright. We will need to make sure we keep the water up to them until they are established, but with all the rain we are having that should not be a problem.                                  

We also put in some Koromiko. This will add a bit of height and variety to the plantings. Awesome effort Piwakawaka.