Spotlighters peering down into the Pourewa Stream
Throughout July the Auckland Mountains to Sea team ran 5 spotlighting events at various awa including Waimanawa, O Te Ha, Awaruku, Pourewa and Oratau as part of our Wai Connection Project. We took over 150 people exploring their local awa by torchlight discovering what kind of animals come alive at night!
Mountains to Sea Coordinators showing off and recording some of their fishy friends
Our coordinators were able to share with participants some key spotlighting techniques that can help survey the biodiversity present within waterways so that communities can better protect and restore their local catchment. These events are also a great way to highlight some of the amazing work communities have already been doing to boost their local biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. It was amazing to see the diversity of awesome critters participants spotted both in and around the many awa we explored, including banded kokopu, īnanga, bullies, tuna/eels, kōura, mayflies, weta, spiders and more!
As an added extra bonus many of our spotlighters were treated to beautiful glow worm displays in Le Roys Bush, Awaruku Reserve and Kepa Bush. Our coordinators were able to share their fun glow worm facts like that glow worms are actually a type of fungus nat larva that use a bioluminescent lure and sticky threads in order to capture their prey.
The sticky threads created by the glow worm larvae
These events would not be possible without our generous event funders the Kaipātiki Local Board, Ōrakei Local Board, Hibiscus and Bays Local Board and Ministry for the Environment As well as our awesome event partners Pest Free Kaipātiki, Friends of Le Roys Bush, Upper Waitemāta Ecology Network, Friends of Oratau Reserve, Greenhithe Community Trust, Restore Hibiscus and Bays, Friends of Awaruku, Nga Kaitiak Hapori o Pourewa, Eastern Bays Songbird and our epic Mountains to Sea volunteers who helped our events run so smoothly.
Awaruku spotlighters checking out the huge kōura/freshwater crayfish on the prowl
If you are keen to join us on future events we will have several over winter so make sure to follow us and check out our event page on Eventbrite to register.
If you would like to support our organisation and help us reach more people with our marine and freshwater engagement initiates, you can donate or sign up as a volunteer below.
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