Events

2024 SERN Spring Field Trip - Hear the vision and help make it happen

SERN Field Trip – Along the Mataura: Hear the vision and help it happen

9am depart Feldwick Gates Queens Park, return 5pm

10.00am: Visit O’Neill’s A QEII, near Fortrose for a walk around this wetland forest and the recent restoration area alongside it. Commentary from Environment Southland who are managing the long-term ecological restoration of the land in this floodplain near the coast. Hear about other active management of ES managed sites further up the catchment as the bus meanders alongside the Mataura River to Gore.

12.00pm: Lunch at Hamilton Park, Gore followed by some plant releasing at the Gore Native Forest Restoration site. Hear about the restoration of this former landfill site from Keith McRobie (Gore DC). Don and Margaret Lamont initiated this project about 20 years ago.

2.40pm: Pukerau Nursery and Red Tussock Scientific Reserve James & Maree Holloway specialise in supplying ecosourced plants for restoration projects in the south and discuss what this involves along with a tour of the nursery. On the return to Invercargill there is a chance to hear more about the conservation of the DOC Red Tussock Scientific Reserve from Brian Rance.

Please bring your own lunch and beverages. Toilet stops available (Edendale & Gore) All welcome! Bus: free but booking essential.

RSVP for queries, map of route and to book a seat to Gay Munro ([Enable JavaScript to view protected content])

Thank you to Environment Southland for generously funding the bus

Kowhai Reach Working Bee - Help Needed!

10:30 am - 2:30 pm at Kowhai Reach

Contact: Please let Kathy Turnbull ([Enable JavaScript to view protected content], 03 236 0772) know if you can attend and what equipment or resources you can bring.

Together, let’s get Kowhai Reach ready for a fantastic opening day! ????

Celebration Prep for New Picnic/Outdoor Classroom - Community Volunteers Welcome!

Limehills students will be lending a hand, but we need parents and community volunteers as well. The more helpers, the quicker and easier the job!

Join us as we prepare Kowhai Reach for its upcoming opening celebration on the 26th of November! We need your help to set up signs and structures, clear the area, and make it look its best.

What’s Needed:

• Equipment:
  • Tractor with a loader
  • Tractor with a post driver
  • Chainsaws for tree removal and cutting posts, fencing wood, and power poles
  • Trailers for transporting weeds and tree debris
• Tools:
  • Gardening gloves
  • Gardening spades, forks, and trowels
  • Secateurs

Matuku Muster!

This weekend have a listen out for the boom of our incredibly rare Australasian BitternMatuku-Hûrepo). Head out to a wetland (Waituna- in fact pretty much anywhere along the lower Mataura!, Waiau wetlands, Lake Brunton) about half an hour before dusk and listen for the deep low of a booming bittern. Ideally stay there till an hour after sunset. There are full details through the Love Bittern website link on the poster. Dawn surveys are good too - know where you are going however as you need to be there an hour before dawn and stay till hlaf an hour after sunsrise.

Make sure you take a torch to help find you way back safely and are not in an area which is too soft to stand on for long!

Next month (Sunday 17rh Nov, 3-4pm) there will be a talk by Wendy Ambury from Love Bittern Project at the Southland Environmental Education Centre in Otatara, with a dusk (8pm+) walk to the estuary off Bushy Point. Free, all welcome!

Bushy Point Big Planting Day

Where: Entrance off No: 5 Bryson Road (Estuary end)

When: Arrive 9.50 a.m. for a 10 a.m. start

FREE BBQ from 12 noon

One thousand plants are ready and waiting. Help our community to grow a native forest!

What we need you to bring:
• Gardening gloves
• Spade
• Appropriate footwear and clothing for the conditions
• Drink bottle and snacks

The restoration of Bushy Point is Otatara Landcare Group’s flagship project for our community. Be part of it by helping on the day! And/or if you can help move plants onto site next week, send an email and we will let you know where and when we need help.

Blackberry clean up at Kew Bush - Saturday 14 September

Meet by the picnic bench, 10am Saturday 14th September. The aim is to clear out some of the blackberry in the open area in the centre of the site where a few sycamores have been killed over the last year. This will make it easier for natural regeneration and some planting later on.

Be prepared for a few thorns and whatever the weather throws for the day!

Contact [Enable JavaScript to view protected content] for more details.