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About Tern: Helping clean up the sandspit


About Tern volunteers(copy)
Over this last year, the local volunteer group of people who help DOC care for the fairy terns on the Mangawhai Refuge have been involved in several schemes to help enhance the spit for the benefit of all ground nesting birds. A $6000 gran from the ASB in June last year was a great start.


Pest control
June and July 2013 saw local volunteers from the Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society (MHRS), About Tern and one from Te Uri O Hau, help DoC and Northland Regional Council members dis-tribute pindone to get rid of rabbits. If not done regularly, pingao and other plants which take their fancy, are chewed to the ground and even-tually destroyed which

means erosion can occur. MHRS have planted pingao for many years to bind the sand along the edge of the sea. Some areas have to be left free of planting as fairy terns like to nest on shell/sand areas free of plants so they can see 360 degrees to be alert for aerial predators.

About Tern volunteers assisted a Te Uri O Hau helper check that all was okay with the birds twice a week for a month. The rabbit population was satisfactorily reduced on that occasion, but will need to be checked each June before any birds begin nesting.

In August a tracking tunnel workshop was held at the Alamar Cr fishing club. Tracking tunnels capture the inked footprints of animals to measure the effectiveness of predator trapping. They can be used for tracking lizards, wetas, mice, rats, hedgehogs and stoats. In late February, a number of tracking tunnels were put out on the south end of the spit beyond Tern Point with the help of the New Zealand Fairy Tern Charitable Trust trapper, Reg Whale.

From the end of November until end of January volunteers helped with the fairy terns during a record breeding year with nine chicks fledged from here.

Weed control
With some of the funding money the group was able to obtain suit-able spray to help DOC poison weeds in April. A good crowd of About Tern and MHRS volunteers, along with the two Trust trappers, were able to help two DOC members on a quad bike spray lupins and pampas grass which have become a big problem. Next year there is enough spray left to help kill off a creeping weed on the flats in the centre at the northern end where migrating birds like godwits often roost when their feeding grounds are covered by the tide.

ink cards(copy)Clean beaches
A beach clean-up day in May saw 14 people from About Tern and MHRS remove a lot of rubbish including a car seat on the surf coast! I appeal to fishermen not to throw bait bags over the side as this is the most common plastic bag found out there. Also a lot of tangled fishing lines which can frequent-ly trap birds, and if they have a hook and old bait, birds can swallow the hook with a sad and slow death. MHRS members did a good job removing wire used in the Big Dig times to secure wind net-ting to trap sand. This has been exposed by the wind in various places and has become a danger in tripping people.

Each About Tern volunteer who participated over the year was given petrol vouchers as a small token for all the hard and tough jobs they helped with. We thank ASB in giving us this opportunity to be part of keeping the Mangawhai Refuge in good order. We are happy to help apply pindone again very soon as rabbit burrows and warrens continue to build up. It is very important to do any work out there before the birds begin breeding rituals and nesting so as not to disturb them.

From Jane Vaughan,

 
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