Thanks.

Just wanted to post something on here today to say thank you to all the wonderful people who are helping make my 'Rotokare Residence' possible.

Thanks to my Mum (Zelda), Barry, Tash, and Sarah for having Ryan and Emma for me while I am away on workshops, courses and of course all the days that I spend at the lake.
I know they are being so well cared for and looked after.
Without you guys this adventure just wouldn't be happening. Thank you for believing in me and what I am doing.

I am heading to Dunedin in a couple of weeks time for a week long leadership course. I have NEVER been away from my kids for so long.
Thanks in advance to all the people who will be looking after them that week, especially Sarah! The kids are so at home with you and your family and I know they will well looked after (and entertained)

Thanks to my wonderful boss Jan for encouraging me to apply for the fellowship and allowing me to be away from our awesome class (and school) for 6 months! Thanks for letting me bounce in and out early in the mornings on the way to the lake. I really enjoy coming in to share what I am doing and hearing how things are going at school.

Thanks to Melissa, Simon and Chauncy for letting me bombard you with question after question! I promise to keep up the homebaking to compensate :)

Thanks also to everyone who reads my blog and sends me messages. Your comments and support mean a great deal to me.
Aroha nui.

Julz

getting brave...

I got bitten by a wee weta through a plastic bag today! I couldn't believe it.
So I decided it was time to harden up! No more plastic bags for this weta hunter

Am not sure I will get to the point where I will handle them without a glove on though!
It is sooooo much easier to handle and measure the weta without using the bag.
Very proud of me!
My gloves are pretty sturdy and the weta seem to get their points stuck in the rubber. Meaning that they don't move much while I am measuring, I just have to remember to hold the weta in my right hand so I can still write things down (found out the hard way!)

This young lady did not want to go back into her roost and jumped onto the ground. I sat and watched her for a few minutes, she let me get really close with the camera. Eventually she climbed the tree and hopped back into the box.

 

 



Am getting really good at determining whether or not there will be weta in the roost before I open it. This photo was a dead give away that it would not have weta in it ..... dead weta blocking the hole! The roost was inhabited by a family of spiders instead. Weta are pretty particular about the state of their roost, no web, leaves or debris and they only like warm, dry conditions. Interesting aye!

 

I like both of these photos of this particular young lady.

 

 

A kiwi and a kiwi and a kiwi....

I was given the opportunity to go with 2 of the Rotokare team today on a kiwi mission.
We were going to track a kiwi that has been wearing a transmitter for the last 12 months and when caught, we would remove the transmitter and let him go.... most likely never to be seen again.

You probably have a few questions in your head at the moment- Why were the eggs taken? where were the eggs taken?  why was the transmitter taken off? how did the transmitter get put on in the first place?

So hopefully I can provide a few answers- then I will tell you about my day!

1. Why take the eggs?

A. Genetics! we can't have kiwi in-breeding (we all know that this will lead to defects sooner or later)
By taking eggs from one area and then releasing the birds into another area, we are spreading the genes around.
B. Kiwi have a much higher chance of survival in the wild when they are over 1.2 kgs in weight. At this weight they have a better chance at fighting off any predators they might encounter (stoat, possums etc..)

Eggs that are uplifted from a burrow are taken to Rainbow Springs in Rotorua to be looked after until the hatch. They are then taken to a place like Rotokare which is known as a kiwi 'creche.' Because Rotokare is predator free, the young kiwi have a really good opportunity to grow and get strong. These young birds are fitted with transmitters, so once they get to the desired weight they are taken from the sanctuary and returned to the place they were found or to another area.

2. How did we know where the kiwi was?

There are 2 parts for this answer. The first part is how did the transmitter get onto the bird and the second is how did we find the kiwi today?
Here goes with an answer...

Some of the Rotokare team have spent a lot of time surveying areas in Taranaki for kiwi. Basically they go out into an area at night time and listen..... yip listen. They are listening for kiwi calls. They may also leave recorders in the area and then go back a few days later and see if any calls were heard.

If calls are heard, then kiwi 'hunters' will go into the area and start looking for them using their eyes.... yip their eyes! (Hi-tech stuff huh?) looking for footprints, feathers, poo etc..

When they are found they will get a transmitter attached to them (only the males though- the female has done her job after laying the egg. The incubating and raising of the young chick is left to the male to carry out).
These transmitters are amazing. They are able to tell us all sorts of things such as if they are incubating, how long they have been incubating for, when they last left their burrow, when they last moved burrows, if they are dead (or the transmitter has come off somehow.)
The transmitter has a battery life of 12 months.


So how did we find the kiwi today?

The kiwi transmitter sends out a beap every second or so. When the aerial is within a couple of kilometres of the kiwi, the aerial will start picking up the beeping sound. As you get closer to the kiwi, the beep sound gets louder. You turn the aerial to ascertain the direction the kiwi is in- once again the beep volume will be louder or softer depending on how close you are to the bird.

 

The top photo shows the transmitter in Chauncy's bottom hand. The bottom photo shows Jenny using the aerial.

So today's adventure....



We leftt Hawera and travelled south for 30 minutes before turning east and heading in land (For locals, we turned up Kohi Road by the Waverley race course.)

We drove for another 30-40 minutes (most on a gravel road) before parking the car.

We walked down a pretty rough road for about 30 minutes before we started using the aerial to see if our wee friend was in the area. We picked up his beep pretty quickly.

Once we were pretty sure he was close, we waited for the next series of beeps to come through. These are the beeps I mentioned earlier that tells us what the kiwi has been up to.

Then we were off ..... well at a snail's pace and as little noise as possible.

 

The beeps were coming from the same vacinity that the kiwi had been in on a previous trip, Jenny said that this was unusual as usually once an egg is hatched, the kiwi move to a new burrow.

In what seemed like no time at all, the kiwi was located, in the same burrow as on previous visits.

 

Why are we taking the transmitter off this bird?

It sounds terrible, but this wee guy has served his purpose. We had uplifted 2 eggs from him last summer. Both were hatched at Rainbow springs and then released back to Lake Rotokare unmonitored. We no longer have the need to monitor him. The 3 of us today will probably be the last people to ever see him.

Carefully taking the transmitter off

 

Then doing some recordings, beak length, weight and general health check.

 

 

 While Jenny was doing the rest of her checks, Chauncy went to have a look at the burrow.....

 And to his astonishment, he found a chick. Estimated to be about 2-3 weeks old. This just made today's adventure even more exciting. We knew that this kiwi had been sitting on an egg and we knew the egg had hatched but we never expected the chick to still be in the burrow. Kiwi chicks are born with everything they need to survive, they don't need to be fed or looked after like a human baby. Usually a chick would hang around for a little while and head off on their own.

 

 

 

 

The entrance to the burrow, was covered over by vegetation when we arrived.

Considering the size of the bird, the opening was really small.

 

 

 

When all the buisness was done, I was asked if I would like to have a wee hold. To be honest I was rather apprehensive about doing it... what if I dropped him!!!!!

Anyway, I plucked up the courage-

He seemed quiet happy to sit in my lap, even looked at the camera :)

 

 

Me and Jenny and the man of the moment. 

 

 

 

Jenny is one of the many volunteers at Lake Rotokare. She has been volunteering there for the last 4 years. She is an ex-dairy farmer who now works part time at Dairy NZ. She is involved in all aspects of lake life and really enjoys what she is able to do. As part of her 'lake life' she has been involved with a lot of the kiwi work that has been done. She has had a lot of experience working with kiwi. It was fantastic to work with her and learn from her today.

 

It's people like Jenny that are the backbone of so many organizations in NZ.

Without the work of the volunteers, the Rotokare project would not be anywhere near what it is today. If you are reading this and think you might have a few hours to spare every so often, find somewhere to volunteer!! If you live in Taranaki, contact one of the staff at Lake Rotokare or visit their website to find out how you can help out.

 

www.rotokare.org.nz ..... go on!

 

 

 

 

There are 26 known kiwi now calling Rotokare 'home.'

We also know that one kiwi bred last season. Most of the kiwi at the lake no longer wear transmitters, so are free to go about their buisness in relative peace and safety. 

Sanctuarys like Rotokare are crucial in ensuring that our national bird and other endangered species survive.

 

 

 I learnt sooooo much today about kiwi, kiwi monitoring, technology involved in kiwi work, history of the kiwi revival in Taranaki as well as so much about the people I was working with.

 

I am so happy to have had this  opportunity today. Thanks to Simon for letting me part of it.

 

my first boy .....

 

Last week while out weta wandering, I stumbled across my first harem.
Weta are interesting in that they live together in harems. One male lives with a number of females. Females choose their breeding partner in the weta world.
Female weta like their males to have big heads..... I thought this was quite funny until I saw my first male. OMG his head was so big he it looked like he could hardly pick it up!
The size of the head apparently indicates good breeding stock and the girls all line up for these particular boys.



My first male weta (left), it's easy to identify between males and females. If you look between their back legs, males have two short pointy bits while a female has one long pointy bit. The other easy to identify feature is the size of their head.

I had been wondering how I would feel when I opened a roost and saw multiple weta in there. Boy did my heart beat pretty fast! Not as fast as one of the girls though, she legged it out through one of the side entrances to the roost. So there would have been 5 females and 1 male residing in the roost.


The first things I saw when I opened the roost.

I chose to measure the male first as I really wanted to have a close look at him. I figured if the rest ran away while I was working with him, I had already had experience working with the girls. I am starting to think that there are not as many male weta around, OR... that there are lots of males in natural roosts. (I think I have just made a hypothesis of sorts ...)

Will let you know what I find ....



what else lives in weta roosts ....

Another day at the office today ...

 

Went out this afternoon to continue on with my weta work and was reminded very quickly that if weta aren't living in a roost, it does not mean nothing else will be!

 

 

Not only did I find two of these big spiders in one roost (the other ran away very very quickly once I opened the roost) but in one roost I found 3 cave weta.

 

I did some quick mathematics today, 14 roosts have been inspected, with 9 of these being inhabited by tree weta. That's a 62% hit rate. Melissa told me that that is a really good find rate.

Weta would usually select natural roosts over an artificial ones, so that fact that we are finding weta in these artificial homes, must mean that their natural choices are full. YAY!

 

I have gotten better at spotting weta holes in natural places as well, I took a couple of photos today within a few metres of each other. I know they are weta roosts because the entrance hole is super clean (I think weta have a bit of OCD when it comes to cleaning!)

 

 

I zoomed in pretty close to get these this size. Further down the tree there were also other holes. Roosts will normally have more than one entrance.

 

 

A huntsman spider in a roost ....

 

 

Weta.... take 1

A big part of the work I will do in my time at Rotokare will be monitoring weta. Two years ago, weta roosts (or hotels or houses) were created by lots of students in our area, volunteers and others that were keen. They were then put out into the sanctuary and left.
As I mentioned in another blog, weta are an indicator species- they tell us about the health of the bush that they live in. If there are no predators around, then the weta will thrive.
The monitoring I hope to carry out will help the staff at Lake Rotokare to know whether or not all the hard work is paying off.

Melissa and I ventured out this afternoon to start this monitoring. To be honest I was a little nervous about the concept of handling these wee critters!
As you can see from the photo, I had to have a lot of things with me. One thing I forgot to put in the photo was my headlamp .... this was still on my head!

The screwdriver is for opening the roost- these are screwed shut so that they can't be tampered with or fall apart. It ensures that the roost stays really dark (and we all know that weta like dark places!)
Please add a comment if you want to know what any of the other things are.

Melissa showed me how to carefully remove the weta from their roosts into a container for basic recordings. During the first few mintues in the container we can record, where we found them, was gender they are, what species they are and what life stage they are in.

 

Melissa opening a roost

Inside the roost

 

From the container to the bag, the easiest part of the job!

 

Then we move them into a plastic bag to do some measuring. My goal is to get confident enough to do this measuring without using the bag (the bag made it quite hard to see some of the smaller detail and provided lots of glare when using the headlamp.... which you needed to use when looking for the smaller detail!)

Using digital callipers to do precise measurements.

So we took measurements of the length and width of many body parts ... will post more photos and details in another post when I get some better pictures.

Once we had taken these measurements we carefully put the weta back into the roost, screwed it shut and moved onto the next roost.
Today I only checked 4 roosts and one of those the screw was too rusty to open. I only found single ladies in these roosts, so am hoping that next time I find multiple residents!
I imagine my heart will race a little the first time I open a roost and find more than 1 in there!

It was lovely working out in the bush on my own, I had a few visitors in the form of kereru and a very curious female tomtit. I was quite excited to start with when I saw the tomtit as I thought it might have been a North Island Robin (they are in the reserve but only in small numbers.) But alas, not this time, thanks to Mr Google I found out that no it wasn't a robin but in fact a female tomtit.

So an exciting afternoon. Can't wait for tomorrow's adventure!

 

 

 

Day One nerves...

Not sure why I was nervous! I guess it's natural for nerves to go with day one.

Simon (sanctuary manager) took me through health and safety first up this morning and then talked in-depth about the journey that the Rotokare Scenic Trust has taken thus far to become pest free. Although I have been involved with the education programmes at the lake since I started at Rawhitiroa school, and thought  I had a good understanding of what had been done, it was fascinating to hear it with my 'science ears.' Simon gave me a report on pest eradication to look at which I promptly went and read.

I then spent some time with Melissa  (environmental educator and weta guru.) Melissa and I talked a lot about the weta and lizard monitoring that I am going to undertake.
She left me with a huge pile of things to read about weta and lizards, including her own thesis that she wrote while do her honours course.
Fascinating stuff!! I feel like a weta expert already. I really surprised myself when I found I was taking notes, joting down questions to ask and making a list of words I wanted to know the meaning of! (communicating in science!)

Later in the morning I had a tour of the shed and ops room with Chauncy (Site manager and resident mountain goat.) It was cool listening to Chauncy talk about where things are, what they are used for and when things take place. Already I have been able to link things that Simon talked about this morning with things that Chauncy said.

This afternoon I jumped at the chance of going out with Chauncy  to collect cards from the tracking tunnels along part of the fence line.
I under estimated the heat of the day! Man was it hot. Too hot to take photos :( will get back up there soon and take some.

The tracking tunnel cards are collected and changed once a week. These tunnels are approximately 50-100 metres apart along the fence line and are used to show what creatures are in the vicinity. They could possibly show- ants, weta, geckos, skinks, mice, rats, frogs etc...
I would feel a hit of adrenalin when we would pull a card out of the tunnel! Would it show anything?
'Nothing' is a great find... a concept that when I thought about it makes total sense.
I will take photos of these next week and post on here.

Although almost dying of heat exhaustion from being out in the sun all afternoon, it was a great afternoon to get to know Chauncy and learn about his journey to Rotokare. Working for DOC everywhere from Raoul Island, to Stewart Island and quite a few places in between.

Already after just one day I can see that the team I am going to be working with are incredibly dedicated to their jobs, the sanctuary and conservation as a whole.

I think I will dedicate a whole post to the predator proof fence- after today I have a new found respect for the fence, the dedication to getting it put up and the on-going part that it plays in the day to day running of the sanctuary.

Roll on day 2!

Thanks Melissa for taking this photo for me. Needed a photo to accompany my profile on the Royal Society Website, Mel wanted one to go on the Rotokare facebook page as well as in their next education newsletter. I think I will be having my 5 minutes of fame later this week!

Symposium in Wellington- time to meet everyone

On Thursday the 30th of January, I nervously headed off to Wellington with my new found friend Glynn (another teacher fellow from New Plymouth.)
The next two days were spent getting to know all the other teacher fellows from around the country, Royal Society staff,  and past teacher fellows. We  also got to meet Greer from Otago University who will be organising our leadership course in March, and Dayle from Core Education who will be working with us on our curriculum development days.
What a fantastic bunch of people! 

As well as getting to know all these great people, we also got to know the ins and outs of the teacher fellowship scheme. I was really surprised to learn that there is a big emphasis on my own personal development as well as my science/ curriculum knowledge, will be strange focusing on me!

If I was excited about the next 6 months before  I went to Wellington I am super excited now!

Out for dinner at the Regal Chinese Restaurant

After the symposium finished a few of us that had late flights decided to take a tour around parliament.

About the title...

I trundled through the R section of the dictionary looking for a word to add to 'Rotokare' that would reflect my time at Rotokare. I chose 'Residence' for two reasons. The first being that I am spending time in 'residence' at the lake, so it would reflect what I was doing and learning. The second was reflecting the 'residents' that live at the lake. The weta, lizards, birds fish etc...

A pretty cool name I think :)

My Hosts- Rotokare Scenic Reserve Trust

I am going to be working with the team at Rotokare Scenic Reserve Trust. Simon, Melissa, Chauncy and the amazing team of volunteers are going to be guiding me for the next 6 months.

My work is going to involve helping with different day to day tasks around the reserve as well as data collection on resident Weta and Lizards. I am going to be working on a data base that will record what Weta are using the roosts around the sanctuary and also gathering information about the types of Geckos and Skinks that are living at the lake.

Since mid 2009 there has been no evidence found of any pest animal species. This is the result of a predator proof fence being erected and a full scale pest eradication programme.

The presence of weta and lizards in the reserve show us that the area is healthy, they are called 'indicator' species. If weta and lizards are competing with pests for food or simply being eaten by the pests then there will not be many of them around. 5 years down the track since 2009, now is the time we should start to see Lizards and Weta in larger numbers.  

The idea of hunting for weta wasn't something that initially excited me .... eeewwww weta! But, I am happy to say that I am really excited about it now.

If you are interested in finding out more about Lake Rotokare, I urge you to visit our website below.

http://www.rotokare.org.nz/

In the beginning ..... post one.

Hi, thanks for coming to look at my blog!
My name is Julz Jameson and I have been lucky enough to be awarded a Primary Science Teacher Fellowship. I am going to be spending the first 6 months of 2014 out of the classroom, working alongside real scientists in a real science setting. In addition to this I am going to undertaking a programme of professional development in science teaching so that when I go back to school in July, I am equipped with up to date knowledge and skills and rearing to get my students hooked into science. .

If you are interested in finding out more about a teacher fellowship follow this link.
http:www.royalsociety.org.nz/teaching-learning/teacher-fellowships