Well we have survived another predicted El Nino summer and in Hawke’s Bay, where I reside, most wetlands managed to avoid drying out because we did receive some welcome rain in the latter part of summer. This was of significant benefit to a wide diversity of bird and fish species dependant on these wetlands. Wetlands need water to function and this has always been a cornerstone of DU’s work.

Our organisation is very dependent on the “back office” staff (Secretary Jan Able, Flight Editor Liz Brook, Web Site Manager Michelle Cooper). It is with some sadness that I farewell Jan Abel who has been our very valuable contribution over recent years. Thank you Jan. At the same time I warmly welcome Mary Mason from Martinborough who has agreed to take up the position and we look forward to working with you.

There are a number of reforms proposed by the current Government for the Resource Management Act (RMA). These will impact on rivers, lakes and wetlands in both a positive and, in my opinion, a negative way. DU has not become involved in these issues in the past but as individuals it as simple as checking on line and making a  submission. These issues are big picture ones and certainly justify comment. Our AGM is in Taupo this year July 29-31, and our team have an interesting programme organised. I look forward to meeting you all again there.

John Cheyne

It gives me great pleasure in presenting my annual report for 2015-16.

While a relatively small organisation we certainly punch above our weight in terms of achieving positive outcomes with wetlands and the biodiversity they support.

DU and our wetland conservation arm, Wetland Care NZ, has supported the construction of a number of wetlands in the Wairarapa and Hawke’s Bay and are in discussions with a wetland care group near Warkworth to assist them with their project. 

Wairio wetland alongside Wairarapa Moana continues to be a major focus for DU because of its large size and the broad community support for this project. With DU’s Wairarapa Chapter’s excellent stewardship of the project a number of other agencies continue to provide financial support. Without this additional support we would have been unable to achieve what has occurred. Jim Law will provide a more detailed report on this project. A big thank you to our supporters  and sponsors Clean Up Wairarapa Moana  Fund ( Greater Wellington Regional Council), NZ Game Bird Habitat Trust, Department of Conservation, South Wairarapa Rotary Club, Nikau Trust Pharazyn Trust and DU Chapters.

DU’s support of Emma William’s bittern research project on developing monitoring techniques has resulted in Emma recently been award her Doctorate. This is an excellent outcome which will make a major  contribution to bittern conservation nationally. A significant part of her research was based on Lake Whatuma in Central Hawke’s Bay where a Wetland Care Group has been formed. The Group includes landowners, waterfowl hunters, conservationists and Iwi who are now involved in a comprehensive predator control and willow control programme, bird and fish surveys supported financially by the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Department of Conservation, Forest & Bird, and Birds NZ. The bittern project supported by DU was an important catalyst for other groups to become involved.

Two of our senior members Ian Pirani (DU NZ foundation President 1974) and Jim Campbell (current co Patron) have over the last 12 months received awards for outstanding service to conservation. Ian received the Queen Service medal which was acknowledged at our 2015 AGM, but more recently Jim received the Queen Service medal. Thank you gentlemen and well done!

New Zealand clean green image is still under threat and there is a need for both urban and rural communities to work together to achieve improvements in the water quality in our streams and lakes. Central Government is reviewing how we can best achieve this and a number of our members have made submissions on what is being proposed. Protecting the margins of waterways and recreating more wetlands to filter sediment,  nutrients and pathogens is an important option that needs further encouragement and resourcing. Wetlands are the equivalent of the human kidneys. DU’s work with wetlands is not just about creating waterfowl habitat but also assist achieve much broader environmental gains.

I wish to acknowledge the contribution of  the Board of Directors, Secretary, Flight  Editor and Web Site Manager in making our organisation tick along with on-going Chapter and member support. Our sponsor’s important support is also gratefully acknowledged.

We do punch above our weight and we only achieve this by working together. However we need more members and young ones at that, and this is a big challenge for us all.

John Cheyne

President

This page had a big gap, and because I sometimes do not get enough copy from members or from my web searches I needed a filler. Then I remembered this magic photo taken by Will Abel way back in 2013. Can we remember that far back?
For those of you who have not visited Wario wetlands in southern Wairarapa, just look at the amazing scenery in store for you.

Take your cameras. Ed.

As the end of the year approached, the Pateke at te Henga were still holding their own and week after week 17 birds were being detected, that is an 85 percent survival. Accordingly, the Pateke Recovery Group indicated that all would be on for a February release and could we please ensure that transmitters and harnesses were arranged and sent to Peacock Springs in readiness? 

Again, as last year we would require 20 transmitters and harnesses while this year we would also have additional birds without transmitters and the success of this year would again be judged on the fate of the transmitter carrying birds. Expecting perhaps a total of 40 or 50 birds we were stunned to be told to expect 80! 

Last year’s release took place on our Forest and Bird Matuku reserve and allowed only a brief glimpse of the Pateke as they rapidly scrambled across a couple of metres of water into dense reed beds rarely to be seen again. 

Wanting a better spectacle this year and ensuring that the ducks would be released into the centre of our predator controlled area, the decision was made to renovate an old boardwalk that projected into a large pond so that most of the birds would be released here with a small number at a site offering easy access from a private property nearby. 

Many days of activity followed with a  couple of us clearing the old boardwalk and constructing a large deck at its far end. Pointed poles 3.6m in length were manhandled, forced through the weed mass then rammed into the muddy substrate below. Bearers, then joists were attached -often a tricky job as being without electricity, a brace and bit at or just below water level was needed. Of course, with the sea only one or two km away, all fittings had to be stainless steel to withstand possible wind driven salt exposure.

With four days to spare the deck was ready along with some under water weeding of the Eleocharis reeds done from kayaks.

Air New Zealand delivered even ahead of their ETA so we had a good start back from Mangere airport to te Henga. A large crowd  was waiting and our PR representative had really done her job well with TV and newspapers both national and local all present. Volunteers helped move the boxed ducks across the river on the raft then walked them 500m to the deck where 60 birds were let go, five at a time. 

Then it was all back to the more public site where after karakia and speeches, several people, old and young, had the opportunity to release a duck. My speech included a call to pass the hat around, as at this stage we still hadn’t obtained funding for the monitoring required of us- the handful of dollars received wasn’t going far but fortunately Auckland Council Biodiversity had decided to fund this aspect.

And what has happened since?

Big numbers certainly have made the  difference in the number of sightings with groups of 8 or 9 having been seen. Again as last year, one or two birds absconded early on. Pateke Point we call it, is a site where pateke routinely seem to enjoy fluffing around protected by the overhanging willow canopy. What a dilemma, as I have been hell bent on getting rid of all the willows in our reserve. Perhaps we’ll leave just these few until replacement planting is mature enough. A transmitter carrying bird has perished cause unknown, while a non-transmitter carrying bird was killed by a car but apart from 3 or 4 adventurous birds, most seem to be sticking close to the release site.

Working back from the deck is a wide elevated boardwalk finished thanks to materials and some labour supplied by Henderson Rotary. A seat and information panel midway will give an opportunity to read about the serial vegetation starting from the cabbage trees, then flax then raupo and other increasingly water requiring sedges, and swamp millet etc.

Hopefully before winter arrives we will have had some nights monitoring where the Pateke forage. With a borrowed radio receiver we’ll have two teams attempting to get fixes from two different sites and follow a small number of Pateke at regular intervals for a few hours. An opportunity also to access some night vision glasses may give some insight as to the ducks movement or if nothing else will give the  local mosquitoes a picnic. Then there is the planned pest monitoring using chew cards attached to stakes placed through parts of the swamp. Seems like an interesting project in theory but as always there’s plenty to do at te Henga.   

John Sumich

Jamie Steer University of Auckland

I was talking with a guy the other day about ducks and somehow got on to discussing favourites. His was the blue duck because it’s on the $10 note. 

He said, ‘That’s a bird that knows how to sell itself’. 

‘Maybe that’s true,’ I said, ‘but I haven’t seen many around recently so I wouldn’t know’. 

We agreed that they had a pretty great strategy 800 years ago. Good for them. 

I told him my favourite was the New Zealand grallard, the bastard love child of the introduced mallard and the native grey duck, and now New Zealand’s most common duck. This at first seemed to both perplex and bewilder him but, once he’d settled down, I ran him through my reasons and in the end he accepted that I’d made the more compelling choice. 

This is basically what I said.   

Grallards are one of the world’s newest birds.  They came into existence not long after mallards were introduced to New Zealand in the mid-19th Century. Mallards took a shining (wink wink) to the grey duck and the rest is history. From what I hear the grey is partial to a bit of mallard action too so it’s a veritable love in. People talk a lot about birds that haven’t changed in ages but I like the versatile new chick on the block.   

Grallards are all over the place. I drive around a bit and there aren’t many water bodies I don’t see grallards on. Clearly they’re loving it here. People shoot a tonne of them every year and they just keep coming back. They’re the duck version of The Terminator. I respect a bird that can take all the crap people have thrown at them over the years and still keep on kicking. I take my son down to feed the ducks and they’re always there ready and obliging.

Grallards are unique to New Zealand. I searched around and haven’t found grallards anywhere but here. There’s something similar in Australia but they’re derived from mallards mixed with the Australian sub-species of grey duck. I reckon they look different over there too. It’s neat to have another locally unique duck, especially one that’s got such an interesting history. Millions of years of evolution in those genes and it didn’t end with their parent species. They’re the biological version of fusion cuisine.

Grallards could teach people a thing or two. Some people are so distraught about losing biodiversity that they can’t see the gains happening right in front of them. Grallards have accepted people and the changed environments that they live in.  They don’t distinguish between native and introduced species, or between pristine and modified environments. They get on with living their lives and the world is a more diverse, interesting and vibrant place for it. While some other species have ‘evolutionary potential’ grallards are busy realising theirs. 

It’s like they’re sitting there quaking, ‘Here I am loving life and the world isn’t going to end’. 

Maybe there’s a lesson in there, I don’t know.

Jamie Steer

Thank you Liz, for another excellent Flight magazine. Full of interest. It’s always been a strong point of DUNZ.

I particularly enjoyed the Whio News 2015 (page 14) and the “Ghost flow” photo of the whio of very pale colouring that had set up on the Whakapapanui. Peter Russell will have been well aware, but I think it’s worth mentioning that the bird is of the leucistic colour phase. Leucism is an abnormal plumage condition, caused by a genetic mutation that prevents pigment, particularly melanin (which produces black), from being deposited in a bird’s feathers. It occurs also in Black swan (personal comment Ken Meirs). It occurs too in animals. I treasure a photo I took many years ago of this leucistic chamois (right) which had been netted in the Waiau river country.

Howard Egan.

The presentation of DUNZ’s certificate “in recognition and appreciation of support to NZ’s waterfowl and wetland habitat” to Ian Gunn from Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) – Manager of GWRC’s Wairarapa Moana Project and a great supporter  of the Wairio Wetland Restoration Project.

Ian was critical in securing a “step change” in funding for the project.  The presentation was made at the end of the meeting along with the small gift of a bottle of wine. DUNZ members may recall Ian joining us at our 2014 AGM in Martinborough.

The recent meeting was held at Fish & Game’s Kilmore Lodge, adjacent to the Wetland where the group planning the 2016 work programme was underway.

Funding currently tots up to around $30,000. Of this, about $20,000 is already funded by contributions from our supporters.