Room 4's Ecosanctuary Visit
By Richard Olsen | Posted: Thursday August 17, 2017
On Monday, Room 4 went to the Orokonui Ecosanctuary to take a peek into the concealed life of NZ wildlife.
First the Orokonui instructors told us a little about the incredible species that live in Orokonui - like Tuis, Bellbirds and the incredibly rare south-island robin. We were really lucky later on in our trip to actually see one of these beautiful birds in the bush. We learnt about Orokonui’s 9 kilometre-long predator fence and that the ecosanctuary is home to 5 of only 300 Takahe left in the world. After a quick snack we were ready to go through the gate into the incredible natural reserve.
We were split into 3 groups then left the main centre to venture into the unknown.
One of the rotations was with Jo, where we got to look closer into the lives of their precious Takahe. The top of the ecosanctuary was home to three of the birds - a mother, a father and a snappy teenage boy. We watched them get fed, then we got to set up the kiwi tracker. Jo taught us about how they used the aerial and radar to find kiwis that they had tagged.
Two of us went to hide the tagged ‘kiwi’ (a plastic model with an activated kiwi tag) while the rest of the group tried to find it with the ariel tracker. We did this a couple of times familiarising ourselves with the surroundings and the technology they use to find the sleeping kiwis.
Another one of our rotations was with Michael, where we went wandering through the native bush and encountered some interesting plants and birds. Michael told us about many plants had adapted to fend of predators, then showed us a few. The first plant we saw was edible and some of us dared to sample a small piece. At first the small, green and brown leaf tasted almost bland, but then a burning peppery taste filled our mouths. Most people spat it, out attempting to annihilate the burning sensation, but some persevered and even managed to swallow it. It was a shame we’d left our water bottles up at the main centre! The next plant we came across was called a Hupiro (stinkwood) and it smelled as bad as it sounded - with a name like that, what can you expect? After the last plant people were more reluctant to go near the Hupiro but after a bit of persuasion we had all smelt it. Immediately wishing that we hadn’t, my first impression was “who cut the cheese?” then we continued on with our walk and saw some Tui and Kaka at the feeding stations.
Our third and final rotation was fishing, in a little pond with a net. We were looking for small water bugs that were endemic to New Zealand. After a lot of perseverance we all caught something. To do so we got our net and dipped it into the water then put whatever we caught into our bucket and the used a smaller net to transfer them into a ice-cream container and examined even further with a magnifying glass. Some of the bugs we found were Water Boatman, Damselfly and Water Beetles. One of our groups was able to see the eel.
In the end after all 3 of our rotations we had some lunch and went on a small tramp through the forest and saw a bunch of interesting stuff, including the tallest measured tree in New Zealand, we were even lucky enough to see a tomtit one of the birds that has been close to been extinction if it weren't for the ecosanctuary or little barrier island they probably would be. Overall I think that everybody enjoyed it and learnt a lot of interesting things this wouldn’t have been possible without all our parent volunteers and guides
By Jamie, Victoria and Lily
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