Backing the birdsong

Ongoing efforts to support native birdlife around Picton need your help as colder months see more pests try and crack the fortifications built around Kaipupu Sanctuary.

The sanctuary is the “jewel in the crown” of conservation efforts to eliminate all pests on the peninsula, while Picton Dawn Chorus has been creating protective rings around the township.

After the two organisations merged last year, community outreach coordinator Anna Polson says the efforts to create more cohesive conservation plan in the Picton area is proving successful and regionally popular.

“We have had to revert to a smaller permanent team and rely more on volunteers after the Jobs for Nature funding finished, but one in 30 people in Picton are involved, which is just an unheard-of ratio of volunteering for a town,” Anna says.

“Kaipupu is also living evidence that when you give native bush the room to grow, it will naturally regenerate – but we supplement that with our mainland planting efforts.

“We’re coming up 10 years of trapping and have three and a half thousand around town, but autumn always seems to see more rats, stoats, ferrets, and cats they’re getting ready for colder months so go searching for food and find our traps.

“As we see more success, pest populations become trap-shy so we’re also in the process of introducing the new AT220 traps onto lines that only need reloading every six months we’ve been fundraising hard for.”

While trapping takes much of the focus, the organisation is also having a leading hand in local planting efforts by putting plants that native birds can feed on year-round with the Ngahere Planting Group. “I think we’re blessed to have a wealth of volunteers and many retired experts in their field that give what we’re doing proper direction to make our efforts as effective as possible,” says Hazel Ross of the Group.

“But it’s also such a social atmosphere with like-minded people who all understand that the little bits we do now combine to make the world a little bit of a better place, and share that with locals and tourists,” adds Dave Johnston.

And whether it’s in the Ngahere Planting Group, trapping or volunteering for fundraisers, Anna says that the community group’s ambitions for local birdlife are only limited by volunteer numbers.

“At this stage, we’re consolidating our gains but we’re really hoping that with our wider coverage of trapping will contribute our goal of making Picton a real birdlife hub but that starts by trapping in people’s backyards as well as the bush.

“There are volunteer roles for everyone, whether it’s social in taking cruise ship groups for fundraising tours, working bees for planting year-round food source plans, or solitary roles clearing trap lines in the bush.

“When we think big, we look at areas like The Snout and The Wedge on opposite sides of Kaipupu with old growth forest but that need pest management from pigs and goats to help undergrowth plans- but they’re definitely achievable goals.

“There’s real hope and investment in New Zealand around pest trapping, but it takes all of us to help our dawn chorus of birds sing loudly to welcome every morning.”