The Community Nursery will be open on the morning of Friday 22 September and all subsequent Friday mornings for volunteer nursery work. After the winter shut down there is plenty to do - firstly a good tidy up of the nursery and education centre and then we will get into full production - some seeds already poking through!
As usual its not all work! Bring along some kai for morning tea and renew friendships and make new ones! See you there - Chris
Posted: 20 September 2017
We were very lucky to have bat expert Catriona Gower (KCC South Otago) come and visit and run an awesome bat event for us. Sitting in the winter sunshine at the Southland Community Nursery we heard all about bats - what a bat is, the bats we have in NZ and their special features - their wings, knees, nocturnal, eating and roosting habits etc. The soft toy bats and puppets were a hit. It soon became clear that it is not that easy to find or see bats, so we became bat
detectives! We played “sneak up granny” using echo locators (instead of turning around) learning about and listening to the noises made at frequencies our ears cannot hear. It was then inside the education centre to make bat masks and colour in, hear more about bats and have a story. Then we turned into bats and moths playing a game using echoes for the bats to find something to eat! We finished with a quiz showing how much we had learnt about bats! Awesome afternoon. Thank you Catriona. Bronwyn
Posted: 18 September 2017
Kereru, kea, kiwi, piwakawaka, tieke, oyster catchers, penguins, pukeko, ruru and shining cuckoo all featured in this year’s Bird Art competition. All the amazing entries were displayed flying, hiding, sitting and nesting in the tree at the Southland Community Nursery. It was a fantastic array of artistic impression and perspective of our native birds, with pictures full of colour and detail of our New Zealand taonga/treasures.
Thank you to all those that entered, and congratulations to those that received a prize. The winners received a book or a Kiwi Conservation Club membership prize, donated by the Southland Community Nursery, Southland Forest and Bird, or Forest & Bird – KCC National Office. Bronwyn
Posted: 18 September 2017
What a great time we had at the Southland Community Nursery learning about and being NZ native birds! We checked out the pond, spotting a white faced heron flying overhead while we were there. Then we transformed into birds with the awesome Landcare Research bird masks which we coloured in, learning about these species and spotting pictures of them around the Southland Community Nursery Education centre building. We played “Poo Power” seeing whether the kereru or the possum won! We went on a treasure hunt around the education centre using laminated picture cards to find the birds and finding out where birds live and made some crazy creatures from the tops and tails book. We attempted to put on a play about native birds, but more fun was had just pretending to be birds!!! We also got to view the amazing entries in our Bird Art Competition and present prizes to those there. Bronwyn
Posted: 18 September 2017
Wednesday 5 July 2017 - Otatara Kindergarten. A fine but cold wintry morning saw 10 nature discovery children arrive ready to explore the Southland Community Nursery environs. We followed the signs through the orchard and past the vege gardens to the education centre where the children were wondrously engaged in the tunnel, opening the doors to see what was there! We had a meeting (just like they do every week at nature discovery) talking about keeping ourselves safe then it was off around the pond. We pulled up the nets from the pond to find a koura (freshwater cray) and some water insects which we looked at in detail. Along the track we looked at different leaves, talked about how special our native plants are, and spotted the piwakawaka (fantail) flitting around us. After some kai it was back out exploring around the bush track hugging 400 yr old kahikatea, listening for birds and sludging through the swamp forest. Back at the pond the ducks has arrived so we gave them a feed before finishing up and heading home. A wonderful morning and we all had fun with a delightful group of children, thanks Kim.
Bronwyn and Chris
Posted: 6 July 2017
