Hawksbury Lagoon update Nov 2021

The Covid restrictions prevented the spring Ki Uta Ki Tai planting days at the Hawksbury Lagoon and Waikouaiti river estuary. This is now to be replaced with a volunteer planting day on Wednesday 17th November. DOC recently fenced an area of reserve land on Stewart Street that was used by Denis O’Connell for horse grazing. DOC are very keen to see this area planted out while the grass is still short and the ground moist.

The Stewart St site, pre-planting

Stefan Much, a local landscape architect on the Lagoon Committee, is developing a design for the area. Stefan’s key ideas are maintaining a view of the lagoon from Stewart Street, creating a couple of grassed areas for recreational use and including some larger specimen trees to provide a park-like feel. All plantings will be native to our area and Denis has very kindly offered access to water on his property for the watering of plants.

Stefan Mutch’s planting plan

One concern is the drain running through the reserve area. This has steep sides and is quite deep making it a danger especially to children and animals like dogs as they may not be able to easily climb out. While Stefan suggested rounding the edges with a digger, DOC have no money available for this and have recommended fencing it off.

If you are interested in helping with the planting and development of the Stewart Street reserve area, please contact Ruth 021 1130 719 or risabelfe@gmail.com.

The Bird of the Year voting has just been completed for 2021. I was very disappointed to see that my favourite, the Australasian shoveller, was not one of the options to vote on, however other lagoon birds such as the spoonbill, grey teal and pukeko were.

Bird of the Month –  Kuruwhengi, the Australasian Shoveller

At Hawksbury these birds are usually found in flocks in the upper lagoon near Inverary Street as they prefer less brackish water than that found in other lagoon areas. The males have quite distinguished chestnut coloured plumage and together with their distinct bill shape and the chuff-chuff sound they can be easily spotted. The distinctive bill is long and flattened at the end. This enables them to filter food such as insects, small snails and seeds from the water. Shovellers will leave the lagoon area to breed about this time of year, moving inland to small ponds and drains where they nest in long grass. Although the numbers of shovellers has been declining in Aotearoa/NZ they are not considered threatened.

Ruth Ferguson