News from the Valley

Due to the adverse weather predicted for Thursday 3 October we have moved this year’s event to The Valley Project, 262 North Road, Dunedin. On Thursday, 3rd October join the Valley Project, community and conservation  groups, local schools and your neighbours for an afternoon of family-friendly fun put on by The Valley Project and its partners! 1pm – 4PM The Valley Project, 262 North Road, North East Valley COMMUNITY STALLS + ENTERTAINMENT + FOOD TUCKS FREE but Koha is always appreciated. To celebrate Lindsay Creek, learn and engage with environmental topics and practices that benefit the awa and …

The results are in, and we can count ourselves lucky here in North East Valley! Thanks to students from Otago Polytechnic and the Nature Club at North East Valley Normal School, we were able to contribute data for the 2024 NZ Bird Count from four different locations in North East Valley. Observations were made between 29 June – 7 July, and sites included Chingford Park, Bethune’s Gully, Wilkinson Street Park in Pine Hill, and the North East Valley Community Garden behind the Normal School. Manu pango (blackbirds), korimako (bellbirds) and pīwakawaka (fantail) were observed at all four sites. Students …

Here is the solution to the October Valley Voice Kids' Corner Bird Code Cracker! How did you get on?

In April we teamed up with Orokonui Ecosanctuary, and together with Ōpoho School explored Blacks Bush.  It's home to Ōpoho Creek that winds its way down Signal Hill.    With the fearless explorers, we investigated the creek, the plant species, and the predator monitoring (tracking) and trapping programmes as part of Predator Free Dunedin’s City Sanctuary project.    Read the reports below from children who enjoyed visiting Blacks Bush.

Looking for a way to connect with nature this spring? One way that we love to connect with nature is through nature journaling, the process of recording your observations about nature onto paper. Local Illustrator Jo Bone, shows us how to do this by making string nature circles. Check out the activity below for how to make your own! How to make a string nature circle: Draw a circle on a piece of paper with a compass or plate. Cut a piece of string long enough to make a decent-sized loop, grab something to draw with and go for …

Chew cards are one of the detection tools in our predator monitoring toolkit that help us to identify the presence of mammalian predators that might harm our native wildlife. Chew cards are made of plastic ‘corflute’ with many small channels that are filled with a peanut butter based (non-toxic) lure and can provide clues to help us to detect which mammalian predators are visiting our backyard. We can select the right trap to target specific species and. The great thing about chew cards is that they are easy to use and place in your backyard - using just a …

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 …

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 …

#wildwindows #openVUE Join us in the Wild Windows and Flighty Flags art display! Let’s celebrate this wonderful wild world and fill our valley with pictures of native birds in our windows (or fly a flag if your window is too hard to see for passers-by). Over the weekend of the 9th and 10th of May, let’s fill the community with birds to let them know how welcome they are here. This is one easy way to bring the Kākā to the valley, a true “window of opportunity”! Please take photos of your creations and post them on social media …

With many members of our community currently staying home, we have been offered an opportunity to spend time exploring our backyards and local parks. Maybe in the last week or so you’ve found some new invertebrate creatures hiding in the wood pile, or slinking through the leaf-litter in the corners of your backyard that you’re not too sure what they are. How about giving Creepy Crawly Hunting a go? Carefully lift up logs or tiles/rocks in your backyard and see what might be congregating beneath. You’ll usually find some good hangout spots for invertebrates (they’re definitely not sticking to …