Sunday 27 September 2015

Kaka in Otonga Video




This video was filmed about 8.00 a.m. on 28/9/16. The Kaka is the dark blob on the left hand side of the tree, facing the video, about 1/5 of the way from the top. The Kaka actually make two distinct sounds, a piopio sound and then the harsh screech, also. In the video tui and bellbird can also be heard. Although the video is distant, it does have quite good sound and shows how vocal these birds are. Also it shows their favourite tree, the mature Kauri, where we hope perhaps there is a good nesting hole? They actually nest in the hollow of such a tree (not on the ground, as our young expert thought in a previous video, but good thinking, though). They seem to have scared away the magpies for now, they may be cracking seeds and eating the insides, I know they have been having fun playing around up there too. Will try and shoot some more video closer up, too.

Bee Awareness Competition Entries

Otonga School has a huge number of entries in the 'Feed the Bees' Colouring Competition at Palmers GardenWorld, this is small sample of what they have displayed in their shop. The Green Team promoted the event on our notice board, as we have bee and butterfly attracting plants at our school. We also have had many classes do studies into bees over the last few years. Hopefully we have a winner somewhere among the entries! Thanks to Palmers for giving us the lovely posters for our display.

Tuesday 15 September 2015

Community Meeting

Tonight we held a community meeting in the school staffroom. The purpose of the meeting was twofold, firstly to see how we can support the Kaka presently residing in our community and secondly to connect with our local community and invite them to join us in planting activities. The meeting was excellent, with a good number of keen people attending. I shared our Enviroschools journey so far and also discussed how our aim is to create a passion for nature in our children. We then had the Department of Conservation guest speaker, Caroline Abbott share facts about the Kaka and give ideas about how we, as a community can help them. Initially planting more bird attracting trees, monitoring the Kaka activity and educating locals about pest control, will be actions we can undertake without fairly easily. Further pest control ideas can be considered as we determine how we want our group to develop. Thanks to our leaflet droppers and also our student reps who also attended the meeting.