A sunny day and along with a wonderful group of educators we connected with nature, smelling and touching the different leaves and flowers, looking at the baby apples growing on the apple trees, and checking out the pest traps – all before going on a walk around the pond. Kererū flew around us and landed in the nearby tree, giving us a great look at this majestic bird of the forest. After some morning tea at the hut, spotting an admiral butterfly and day flying magpie moth, we continued to use our senses to find all the objects listed on the sensory scavenger hunt list – try it at your place – See Activity Cards at: https://www.southlandcommunitynursery.org.nz/education-centre/activities/school-activities/. Back at the Education Centre the children explored the habitat panels and potted up some kōwhai seedlings, giving back to nature.
Bronwyn
Posted: 26 November 2019
We wandered through the orchard smelling and feeling the herbs and flowers, and watching the bumble bees. Following the signs we stopped and spotted the two kereru sitting high in the trees, the strawberries were seen and squiggly worms held. The pond track was followed and we used our sense of touch to feel the roughness of the cabbage tree bark and smoothness of the hebe trunk. Weta and slaters were looked at up close in the bug hotels, we had a break at the hut, listened to the birds and some of us spotted scaup ducklings on the pond before they hid away. Exploring the panel pictures, listening to a story about Kiri the Kereru who ate too much, and playing with the soft toy birds finished a busy morning.
Posted: 21 November 2019
Southland QEII Rep Jesse Bythell brought the QEII Board and staff from Wellington for a Covenant visit on a very cold blustery day. The visit was part of their three day meeting and the Board travels around the regions for its meetings and covenant visits. It was the second visit in so many weeks by some of the Board and staff as they had also attended the Southland Covenantors gathering here in early November. Other invited guests were Randall from ES, Christine and Tapuwa from SIT, Dallas from Pestbusters and Sheryll from ICC. How different the weather was for their two visits – scorching sun on the first, hail on the second!! It didn’t dampen enthusiasm however and after lunch in the Education Centre, and informal chats, the group accompanied Jesse and Chris around the covenant tracks including the track funded by QEII’s Stephenson Fund. A Hut inspection followed and a poke into the tall forest. There were lots of good questions, discussions and learnings before the group headed off to Bowman Bush Reserve also in Otatara.
The Rances restoration area was discussed at some length and below are some QEII Monitoring Photos taken from the same place from 2011, 2015, 2018 and 2019.
Chris
Posted: 20 November 2019
This class of learners have all signed pledges to be the kaitiaki of the scooter park area of their school, and they came to the Southland Community Nursery to learn about native plants that can be planted and how to plant. A matching activity around the plant nursery got them matching up a card to the plant and learning about how tall the species grow and what conditions they can tolerate or not – some like the shade while others like the sun! The diversity of native species was explored alongside thinking about what plants will be suitable for areas around the scooter park. Then the right way to plant a plant was demonstrated and practised – using those species that like wet feet in this wet area of the property. Planting the right way gives the plants the best chance of survival. Great helping mānuka class.
Bronwyn
Posted: 20 November 2019
Walking through the orchard different coloured items in nature were discovered – the yellow flowers and yellow possum trap, pink flowers with a bumble bee, red poppy flowers, brown soil, grey clouds above us and lots of green everywhere! We followed the signs to the education centre and then noticed all the signs around the pond track, some marking trees and others marking different tracks. There was a tadpole and bugs in the pond nets and a leaf veined slug, slaters and a weta in the bug hotel. We saw the multi-coloured fuchsia flower with blue, yellow, pinky purple and green – just beautiful. We felt the prickly, smooth, rough, and hedgehog like plants and parts of plants. We saw Donna the nursery duck with 3 fluffy ducklings – 2 black and 1 yellow – very cute! We used our sense of smell all morning – bay leaves, fennel, tarata/lemonwood, stinkwood – with some smelling nice and others not so nice! We heard birds, cabbage tree leaves rattling, the wind and each other. A run around the maze, a break for morning tea, puzzle time and some potting up of kowhai seedlings all happened before the rain hit!
Bronwyn
Posted: 18 November 2019
