Last week, I had the exhilarating opportunity to join Tarn from Auckland Zoo’s conservation team on an adventure off the beaten track right here at Matuku Link. Auckland Zoo’s Siân has been helping us collect data from our tracking tunnels since Matuku Link first began. Tarn has only just taken over this role.

The day before our adventure, Tarn had put fresh tracking cards in all the tunnels. Our mission was to collect and label them all. For the first time, I ventured into the ngahere above our wetland, starting with a climb to our first line. Tarn expertly guided me on removing and marking the tracking cards, When we finished, he pointed into the wall of green behind the tunnel, saying, “After you!” When I say off the beaten track, I mean bushwhacking through what seemed like uncharted territory! I initially tried to avoid the more obvious obstacles, but Tarn advised that unless we wanted to be out all day, we had to walk in a straight line. That line was anything but straight – I ducked under tree trunks and slipped down banks, hoping for footholds. I soon began to master spotting and following the pink flagging tape and even started enjoying myself! Unfortunately, our first tunnel line revealed numerous mouse and rat footprints.

Once over the top of the ridge we started the second line. This involved a sharp slide down a bank to cross a hidden brook. We ventured higher up the steep ascent on the other side. Thankfully on this line we only found signs of invertebrates on the tracking cards. At the top, we stopped for a drink, taking in a breathtaking view over Matuku Link. After a fun but challenging morning of sliding down banks, clambering over fallen trees, and leaping over babbling brooks, we suddenly emerged onto a well-used track. Back on familiar ground, I headed back to the barn while Tarn bravely continued with two more lines filling up the rest of his afternoon.

Now a little stiff and feeling like I have been dragged through the bush backwards, I sit at my computer and marvel at the efforts so many volunteers and staff from organisations like Auckland Zoo put into improving outcomes for our environment and the wildlife that call it home. Thank you, Tarn and the team at Auckland Zoo, for helping us collect this valuable data. It helps us and our trappers get a snapshot of what is happening and to plan the next step.

~ Rebecca Bowater

Every year the VIP Kayak Day is different, we’ve had super hot summer days when most guest went for a voluntary dip in the clear Waitakere river, a lockdowns postponed day, last year a post-cyclone silted river adventure. Because of the latter, this year we launched at Bethells Beanz – owners Peter and Petroesjka generously providing us access over their property. The Ted Manson Foundation provided the vans to transport us to where the kayaks, loaned to us by the Owairaka and Lynfield/Green Bay Sea Scouts were waiting – delivered to us by the amazing Brian Harvey. And the team of volunteers on the day did everything from registrations to ‘launching’, sausage sizzling to serving, taking photos, preparing home baking, preparing the launch site, driving or guiding… THANK YOU. You’ll notice it is only possible thanks to the input and generosity of many!

The weather turned out to be a lot better than forecast – most groups had either a little drizzle or a short, sharp splash – we even saw the sun in the afternoon. Those who did get wet (from above or below), warmed up quickly with a hot drink, home baking or a sausage. 

 A huge thank you also to you, our guests, who support our wetland by joining this day, experiencing Auckland’s largest wetland in a unique way. Re-introduced pateke (brown teal) were seen, as well as flocks of kereru, putangitangi (paradise ducks), lots of native forest birds and unfortunately also a lot of non-natives: plants (weeds) as well as animals (geese). Our namesake Matuku (bittern) even showed him/herself this year, to the amazement of our visitors, as there are only 700 left in New Zealand and they are known as ‘cryptic’ birds – very hard to find. 

See you soon at one of our other events, nga mihi,

Annalily van den Broeke

All images by our voluntary photographers Stefan Marks and Eric van Essen, in between guiding and pulling kayaks in-and out of the water! – thank you!

We’d love to see you here at Matuku Link for our volunteer sessions – every Tuesday and every Third Sunday of the month – except when it is a Statutory Holiday or a weather warning is in place – info for 2024:

The Tuesday Team – weekly around 15 people work hard from 9 am till noon, with a cake-filled morning tea break, in our plant nursery and out in the field. The nursery is the motor of our project – under the expert guidance of one of our Waitakere Rivercare members, who have been running a local native plant nursery for the past three decades, we grow all our eco-sourced plants here, from seed or from cuttings. The team looks after the plants until they are at least 30 cm high and can be planted out in the field: former bare paddocks are now covered with our native trees. Planting is done in winter by our Tuesday volunteers as well, and in summer they rescue those plants from smothering weeds. Other volunteers like building more than planting – they are in charge of all construction projects we come up with – our creative Window Wall, steps onto the boardwalk, a new aviary, seats… It is a family friendly, all ages welcome, environment where we provide all the tools (gloves, secateurs, spades) and instruction you might need, plus a lot of gratitude for you spending your time with us! Just register you’re coming for the first time so we can pull an extra chair up. Register here.

Monthly Sunday Working Bees – every Third Sunday of the month from 10 am till 1pm for the past seven years we’ve welcomed everyone to help us plant (in winter) and do “search and rescue” (weeding around our native plants) and together we’ve revegetated almost 3 hectares of bare paddocks, woohoo! Our native plants and trees need looking after for at least three years after they’re in the ground, to make sure they won’t get smothered. After floods we replace stakes, upright plants and clear debris. After very dry times we might need to replace plants or create light wells for infill planting. Some might spread mulch, regravel the pathways or cut back overhanging branches. Basically together we look after Matuku Link. In winter we recommend wearing gumboots, in summer closed shoes (cutty grass!) and a hat. We supply the gloves, spade and sharks (flax knives, super tools for weeding). If it’s your first time with us, or if you’re planning to come with a bigger group, please let me know so we’ve got enough hot drinks, soup or salad for our shared lunch – register here.

Always: we’ve grown Matuku Link entirely with volunteers and their knowledge, time and expertise has been invaluable. We’ve had experienced builders, biologists, planners, botanists, educators, fundraisers, lawyers, trustees, business people, artists, educators, trainers, photographers, graphic designers, IT people, web experts, trappers – we can ALWAYS use your experience and expertise – we’d love to hear from you. Or if you want to learn something and think we can off this through our network of volunteers, get in touch. Currently we’re specifically looking for people who’d like to give guided tours – for adults or children – and help out with our education program (we’ll train you, enthusiasm is the only requirement). Contact Leah Nielsen, our educator, to learn more – schools@matukulink.org.nz

If you’re new, we’ll take you on a guided tour around the project as well. If you’re a regular, you know how satisfying and fun this is, so bring your friends! All ages welcome, especially the tamariki.

• no need to bring your own gloves and spades, but if you do: everything needs to be squeaky clean because of kauri dieback
• for the shared lunch we’ll provide soup or salad & snacks (and homemade baking if you’re lucky!) & hot drinks to share, if you can bring something to add, that’s always appreciated.

But don’t forget if you haven’t been before to register HERE.

Hope to see you there! – Annalily & the trustees

0212207136 or hello@matukulink.org.nz

Seeds away!

One of our nursery volunteers loves to grow plants and was wondering how to regrow the native plants and trees on the many slips in the Waitakere River valley. Usually those barren sites get colonized by weeds before the native trees can take hold. Planting like we do here at Matuku Link on our regular volunteer days isn’t possible, as most slips are inaccessible or too steep. How can we give our natives a head start? We can’t wait for the birds to spread the seeds… but we can throw them up there! Not individually, but definitely as a clump, a “seed ball”. She started to gather appropriate local seeds (karo, karamu, ti kouka, pohutukawa, cassinia, Pseudopanex lessonii, koromiko, harakeke, manuka and kanuka) and researched how to stick the seeds together.. Turns out that Google even has recipes for that… a week later a group of keen seed ball makers came together and sifted seeds, peeled sticky karo seeds from their pods, mixed clay, potting mix and soil with some fertiliser and made 780 very small square ‘pallets’. Not balls at all, more like thick square clumps of blue-tack! A trial had shown they needed to dry for two days before they were solid enough to throw against the barren banks. That same trial also showed it was quite hard to throw far enough up a slip. Which lead to a call out amongst friends for throwing devices. Armed with a slingshot, a shanghai and eight ice cream containers with seed pallets, a small team sett off to Te Henga/ Bethells Beach and hurtled them towards the huge slip above the lagoon. None of the devices were very successful but the fish bait cannon saved the day! Pumped to 120 psi with a bicycle pump, loaded with a especially shaped slice of potato and 30 seed balls and in the hands of its owner, those seeds balls went flying!

And now we can only hope that some of the seeds germinate and take hold on the clay and silt… as we didn’t do the slip next to it, we have a control site and we just have to wait and see.

The moral of the story: there is always someone with a brilliant idea to give our environment a bit of help. Add friends and fellow plant lovers, some ingenuity and a beautiful morning on the beach and you’ve got a recipe for success – and for seed pallets. Thank you for letting me tag along!

Annalily

…is another bird with a band! Stephen Davies, experienced and knowledgeable bird bander, decided Matuku Link would be a good place to band birds for several reasons: it is a easy to access which makes it less time consuming setting up and taking down the mist nets, it is close to Auckland so trainee bird banders can join and most importantly it will help the Matuku Link conservation efforts with growing knowledge bird species and their abundance.

This first session Stephen was joined by James Russell, Ian Southey, Adrian Riegen (setting up the nets), Victoria Brosnahan, John Dyer and our own team came to have a look at what was happening as well.

If you’re keen to get up bright and early and learn more about mist netting and bird banding, contact me at  hello@matukulink.org.nz

Annalily van den Broeke

PS For the birders out there, the score was: Grey Warbler 1, Chaffinch 1, Fernbird 2, Blackbird 3, Silvereye 51. And a kereru that got away.

Hope to see you there! – Annalily & the trustees

At  32mm the little galaxiid is just beyond the whitebait stage. Its presence though, 600m up from the Waitakere River past the multiple cascades and waterfalls of a rock bottomed, forest-shaded stream at Matuku Link, shows the determination and climbing ability of banded kokopu.  A mere 2 months ago it came out of the Tasman Sea following the Waitakere river for some 4-5 km through open river and the te Henga wetland seeking a clear flowing stream to call home. Its timing was fortunate as the flood of the century had just occurred, evidenced still by the log falls across the stream and flattened nikau on the banks. Koura were obviously affected by the flood as their number was far less than on a previous survey while sleek long finned tuna seemed to have weathered the storm, one in each quiet pool. Another interesting find was several Dolomedes, a semi aquatic species of spider. Returning to our vehicles we enjoyed the combined frog and ruru chorus.

Our night time survey of banded kokopu  [BK] led by Lyn Hamilton-Hunter was to determine if recruitment of these galaxiids was occurring as a population of Perch in the river, the unfortunate legacy of a misguided coarse fisherman, puts native freshwater fish at risk. Earlier in the evening we had already found several adolescent and breeding-age BK and with their size range of 112 -165mm this already meant different years of inhabiting the stream. Seeing very small juveniles however, absolutely nailed it.

The survey, though useful in itself, was part of a scoping to see if we could translocate Giant Kokopu [GK] into our streams from the breeding facility where Lyn is employed.  If BK, their galaxiid cousins could make it past various hazards and predators, then so could GK as all come from the sea in the mixed species schools we call whitebait.  So because of BK we might be OK for GK!

John Sumich – Matuku Link trustee – reporting on the freshwater fish survey done on 21st November 2021

Top row: Dolomedes semi aquatic spider – biggest Giant Kokopu in hand – biggest Giant Kokopu – smallest Giant Kokopu. Bottom row: young yellowish tuna (eel)

We’re super stoked to have Hohepa join our team as lead educator to teach our tamariki in our first ever official Education Outside the Classroom (EOTC) programme. I’ll let him introduce himself:

“Kia Ora koutou katoa, ko Hohepa Waenga toku ingoa, nō Te Tairāwhiti ahau.

Hello everybody my name is Hohepa Waenga. I hail from the very far East Coast area of Te Ika-a-Māui (North Island), from a place called Cape Runaway along State Highway 35 between the townships of Ōpōtiki and Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa (Gisborne). However I was born and raised here in Te Uru o Tāmaki / West Auckland in the suburb of Te Atatū North, now known as Te Atatū Peninsula. My iwi affiliations are Te Whānau a Apanui, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga. I am also of Cook Island and English decent.

I have been interested in animals and the environment since I was very young – I am known as the animal and nature enthusiast in my whānau and most likely my hapū too. This interest led me to Auckland Zoo in 2011 where I started as a volunteer guide, and ended my journey there at the beginning of this year as an Educator/Volunteer Coordinator. I have also been involved as a volunteer guide on Tiritiri Matangi Island since 2011 as well. It was these two places that grew my passion and love for our own backyard, our own endemic and native species here in Aotearoa NZ. I also have a strong interest in Mātauranga Māori and other indigenous bodies of knowledge. 

I am very excited to join the Matuku Link whānau as your new Lead Educator. 

Can’t wait to meet you all over the coming few months.”

I’m sure you all will give him the same warm welcome as we have (including baking, if possible!)  next time you meet. And if you’re interested in joining our team of volunteer educators, please contact me or him via email here.

Annalily & trustees.

Some of you might remember our Open Day on 4th of February 2018 for World Wetland Day. We had a good time, but not many visitors, even though the weather was okay. Until we packed up at 3pm and it started to hose down… as it had been doing for all of the day closer to town, the main reason why not many ventured out towards the west! It was all quite exciting, seeing the river rise quickly, flowing over the culvert… until we heard the siren at the fire station and people warned us to leave NOW if we wanted to get out of the valley, as the bridges would soon be submerged. Later that day we heard of the tragedy of four local boys who got swept away and two of them sadly lost their lives.

This flood luckily no lives were lost, but the damage was much bigger: houses and cars got written off, the Waitakere River took out the road near the beach, huge logs floated into the wetland. Slips caused by the rain are still blocking driveways and roads, trees have fallen across paths and drains…but the wetland did what a wetland is supposed to do: it slowed the water right down, caught the sediment, the grasses held most of the banks in their place, larger trees acted as a sieve for debris.

Our boardwalks are still there, as well as our plants. No water entered the house or the barn, the dinghy only made it to the neighbours’ paddock and most of the traps were tied down, a lesson learned from the last flood!

But many small, recently planted, didn’t have time to put good root systems down and were horizontal when we found them. Many sticks have been washed away, as have the tree guards protecting young growth from the rabbits. Large parts of our shell paths have to be redone or the shell exchanged for crushed concrete or boardwalks. We found a TV, roofing iron, cut logs, plastic bottles, a small table, mattresses…. all delivered from somewhere upstream. It will be a huge job to clear the trees from the debris of grasses which is smothering them, carefully coaxing the bigger, 3 to 4 year old trees to assume a more vertical position and replace broken fences.

Our upcoming survey will reveal how our puweto and matuku have done, but at least the eels are back as well as our pateke. The areas with raupo look unfamiliar: all the tops have been broken off, creating some of the flotsam as well as stunning views where there were none. The new growth is already coming through, in a couple of months you wouldn’t know this has even happened.

A huge thank you to our caretakers Marjolijn and Wayne, who kept us informed, maintained the trapping regime, uprighting small plants and restoring the water intake to the nursery, as well as many other jobs.

It could have been much worse, but we could also have done without this epic flood during the pandemic! I’m sure everyone is itching to help out, but we’re keeping Matuku Link closed for volunteers until we are in a safe Level 2, as per the advise of the Ministry of Health. If you do want to help, consider donating towards a tree to replace one we lost… thank you!

And let’s hope we can welcome you back at Matuku Link soon.

Hope to see you there! – Annalily & the trustees

Kimberley D’Souza from our friends at Whitebait Connection, who also have helped us installing the fish ladder, came for our first training session on water quality testing. Over the next couple of years we aim to do the testing every second month, at our Working Bee, to keep track of the state of our streams. And hopefully to be able to take action if we notice any deterioration. We’ll be doing the testing after the shared lunch during our monthly Working Bee days so we can involve as  many people as possible, part of our ongoing education and outreach strategy. And it’s fun!

This time the rain came bucketing down when we were trying to start our first testing session, so we just took some water and did the rest of the science sheltering from the rain at the nursery. Next month we’ll be doing the real thing, including checking for macro-invertebrates which should be really interesting!

If you’re interested to join us, make sure you’ll be there at 1.30 pm at our next Sunday Working Bee – 18th of July – for the session with Kimberley. 

Hope to see you there! – Annalily & the trustees