News from the Valley

The infamous Crush the Cargill kicked off Saturday 12th December at 10am with 86 humans and 7 doggos embarking on the trail with 24 hours to get as many laps under their belts as possible. For those who aren’t familiar Crush the Cargill is a 24 hour race that sees participants running, or walking, up and down the mountain as many times as they can. Mount Cargill, also known as Kapukataumahaka, is a volcanic outcrop and has an elevation of 680m, A singular lap of this race is 8.5km, starting at Bethunes Gully and stretching to the summit and …

Recognised through-out the world as the toughest, highest, longest 24-hr race since Pheidippides did not exist, since Adam wasn’t a boy, and since bread was sliced. The 24-hour fundraising race sees participants running, or walking, as many times as they can to the summit of Mount Cargill and back down again. The races’ inception came about by a group of running buddies contemplating crazy challenges for themselves over beers. The annual Crush the Cargill event is all set to commence at 10am on the 12th of December. Crush the Cargill and The Valley Project are about getting people together …

Weed Bash Success! The Weed Bash was full of celebration last month when various Weed Warrior crews and Community Gardeners removed about 15 woolsacks of weeds from community spaces and backyards! The target weed for the Weed Bash - Banana Passionfruit Vine (Passiflora tripartita) was the top of the list for removal - a highly invasive weed, with many plants removed from backyards. Banana Passionfruit Vine is a climber, climbing onto trees, eventually smothering them. Keep on look out for a plant with three lobed leaves, pink, tubular hanging flowers when flowering and banana-shaped fruit that ripen from …

The term “weed” is a little bit of a misnomer - the term weed could apply to any plant, if it’s not quite where we want it to be. Some species however, are known as invasive weeds - these are plants that are introduced into a new area and spread very quickly, altering the new environment. Often, these plant species take over areas, creating a monoculture and have little benefits for native wildlife. Plants considered weeds may also attract undesirable species (i.e. sycamores attract wasps and likely rats too), do not produce foods native species eat and/or are not …

How about taking a ramble for the holidays? With the days becoming longer and warmer, I feel the pull of exploring the outdoors becoming much stronger. With the school holidays and warm spring weather, I find myself with some spare time to spend outside. Chingford Park up North Road offers plenty of opportunity to satisfy my craving for the outdoors. Lindsay Creek, running through the heart of Chingford Park and the Valley itself is particularly alluring as the sight and sound of the water flowing across the river-bed has a calming effect. The creek is also home to many …

Meg and Simon are community members within the Lindsay Creek Catchment who have been working towards enhancing wildlife in their backyards and community spaces by managing mammalian predators and weedy plant species respectively. Have a read of their stories below and find out ways you can be involved! RIP Stumpy Sorry, but your nightly feasts on my kōwhai, silverbeet and cabbage seedlings had to stop. If we hadn't got an infra-red camera, you and your friends probably would have chomped through my entire vege garden by now and would be waiting hungrily for the tasty new leaves and birds’ …

Keen to learn more about our curious kākā? Read below about Scott Forrest's research into the movements of kākā outside the Orokonui Ecosanctuary fence and the project, kei hea ngā kākā (Where are the kākā) lead by Taylor Davies-Colley! Operation Kākā Repopulation As part of my Master’s research at the University of Otago, I will be tracking the movements of a subset of the Orokonui kākā population. Our wonderful ecosanctuary at Orokonui is great at keeping mammals out, but not so good at keeping kākā in! So to provide the best support for them on the outside, we …

Does the idea of sharing your backyard with more native wildlife excite you? By working together as one big “Backyard Ecosanctuary” and a Lindsay Creek team of 14,000 community members, this idea is now becoming a reality. The “Backyard Ecosanctuaries” programme is an initiative by the Open Valley Urban Ecosanctuary (VUE) project to encourage positive outcomes for native wildlife in backyards and community spaces through actions based in citizen science and education. We have several focus areas for 2020, driven by passions grown within the community. Primarily, we are focusing on habitat enhancement through planting and weeding and mammalian …

Throughout my walks over the last few weeks, I have been enchanted by the sight and sounds of many native and introduced bird species, which got me thinking more about some of the mammals living in New Zealand that we don’t often see. New Zealand Indigenous Mammals After watching the “So you want to be a bat-spotter” webinar from Predator Free New Zealand, I found out a little more about our native mammal species. We only have two species of native land mammals in New Zealand, both of these being bats (long-tailed and short-tailed bats) or pekapeka in Te …

Inspired sharing of moments of joy, from Tahu Mackenzie BUBBLE VISION began for me when I saw a Facebook post from my friend Kassandra Lynne on her Photography page, a beautiful snapshot of a moment in her day and some musings on her feelings at the time the photo was taken. Like an exhilarating and pleasurable bolt of lightning the inspiration struck! I realised I wanted to make a space for people to share photos of what they were loving from their beloved bubbles every day and Bubble Vision was born! We started on the first day of lockdown …

Another NEVology from local science communicator, Helen Jack AUTUMN IS certainly upon us and our lockdown wellbeing walks quickly moved from teddy sightings to mushroom spotting. The star attraction is Amanita muscaria, otherwise known as fly agaric, fly amanita or ‘the red ones with white spots’. Amanita muscariaI was terrified of being poisoned by toxic shrooms as a child, but in recent years I have realised how amazing and totally necessary fungus is. Fungi are literally in a league of their own, belonging to neither plant nor animal kingdoms but to their own fungi kingdom. Fungi don’t make food …

If you’re like me, you have square eyes by now trying to keep up with everything COVID-19. It's a full time job, let alone the ‘homeschooling’, the actual job, and the abundant garden produce that needs to be preserved right now. But let's back up the bus a little - what actually is this thing, how does it work, and what’s with all the names? I always knew there was a difference between viruses and bacteria, but I didn’t quite realise how different these germies were until Miss Jack made us watch a whole lot of YouTube videos …