Otatara School Bioblitz – Day 2
Day 2 of the Otatara School Bioblitz at the Community Nursery was held on Thursday 12 December 2019. Another 150 students came in groups of 50 to find as many plants and animals as possible in their allotted two hours. The weather was hot and dry (for a change)!
As with the Monday, students were divided into groups doing pond studies with Pat Hoffman (ES), Bush studies with Mark Oster and Walter (ES), Restoration planting area studies with Jesse Bythell (QEII) and Paddock studies with Lloyd Esler. Bronwyn, Linda and Chris were at Base Camp (The Education Centre) for identification of all the plants and critters found. There was lots of excitement as students searched high and low to find plants and animals and put them into their pottles to study at Base Camp. The glee and excitiement of finding something in your net or under logs was infectious!
Some interesting finds were
Bush – we learned all about “Loopy Nachos” from Mark Oster (a tale about Looper and Notcher caterpillars on flax leaves). Lots more ferns and shade loving plants were collected and identified and Kotukutuku Fuchsia flowers looked at closely under magnifying glasses. Ground beetles and spiders were collected. There were some chew marks on the possum chew cards but rumour has it that they belonged to Mark Oster!!
Paddock – because of the hot weather lots of flying insects were chased down by children with nets and lots of insects were found. The paddock is a great place for chasing down insects as well as looking in and under the trees around the paddock.
Restoration Area – the pitfall traps were emptied with a large black ground beetle and a weta in one, the weta hotels around the restoration area also had weta inside them, the Artificial Cover Devices (ACD’s) – brown corrugated covers were lifted up carefully but not much was found underneath this time. On Monday a skink lizard had been seen (fleetingly!).
At the pond, blue damselflies were flying and landing on the pondside rushes. Their freshwater stage larvae were also observed under the water, wirlygig beetles were found zooming around but the most exciting find of the day were two very tiny koura babies – see photo with a pencil for scale.
Thanks to our amazing helpers Mark, Walter, Pat, Jesse, Lloyd and Linda and to the teachers and parents and the students themselves. What a fantastic end to the year.
Chris and Bronwyn
Posted: 13 December 2019