An extremely mild month of weather this month as calm cloudy days seemed to
dominate. Not that I am complaining as I much prefer that over heavy wind and
rain! The water clarity is also amazing at the moment with crystal clear water for
a couple meters, great for dodging rocks! A surprising number of visitors for winter
and I seem to be running into people constantly still landing on the island, some
even arriving via kayak.

Tokotoko Solutions
Tokotoko solutions have been volunteering over the last month helping to cut and
maintain the southern bait station lines through the bush. The work is hard and
slow but we get stuck into it and, so far, we have cut 7 of the 11 lines which is
awesome! I really appreciate them helping out as this job would be impossible for
me to do alone and frankly, too risky for volunteers, so having them onboard has
been perfect! Maintaining these lines is essential for keeping the mice population
low on the island and to help deal with any pesky rats that swim over. An added
bonus is the lines provide easier access to weedy sites.

Volunteer Day
A bit of a different volunteer day for us this month as we made our way over to Onemama Point to help out there. Kieran from QEII National Trust and the landowner asked if we could provide some labour to help out with their weeds in exchange for lunch. I said absolutely! 18 of us headed over there and got stuck into their mothplant, Chinese privet, and climbing asparagus. It was really great to do something a bit different for the monthly volunteer day, and especially to help out a neighbour – it was perfect. We had such a good time that we were saying we should make it an annual event! (Our thanks to Malcolm Pullman for making the photo below available)

Student Teacher Trip
50 stage one and stage three trainee teachers from Te Rito Maioha Early Childhood New Zealand visited the island this week as part of their noho marae stay in Whangārei. Nearly all of them except for a few had never been to the island before so it was a great opportunity for them to learn about the history and the current conservation work going on here. We only had a few hours so had to make it fairly quick as we made our way around the sites and stopped for talks.

Pest Control
Nothing caught on Limestone this month, but a stoat, rat and two mice were caught on Knight Island. The other bad news is that I did see a stoat on Limestone Island a few nights ago. It darted in front of the can-am and I got a good look at it – definitely a stoat. There is not much more we can do as the island is saturated with traps but I am getting a mustelid dog over tomorrow to have a look and see if we can find its den, or if it has swum off the island. I checked the cameras today and surprisingly it wasn’t on any of the footage. Hopefully a recent arrival?

School trips
22 students from Hora Hora school visited the island at the end of last month to volunteer doing various jobs around the island. The students split into two groups with one group tackling moth plant in front of the singlemens’ quarters and the other group pulling out Mexican devil at the petrel site. Great work by both groups.

Other goings on
16 people from a tramping club visited the island this month. They were happy to do their own thing so I left them to it and met them back at the barge later.
The barge was surveyed this month as part of the requirements for operation on the island. I am happy to say the surveyor was very happy and passed it with flying colours.
Moth plant is obviously bursting at the moment. The drone spray of Rabbit Island means that the moth plant there won’t be making its was over to Limestone Island, Onemama Point or Onerahi which is great news!
That’s all for this month!
Bevan