Zealandia's new game

Darren from Zealandia came in today to introduce us to a new game that the team at Zealandia is developing together with students from lots of schools. He left us each with a card that shows a bird found in New Zealand and tells us some key information about it, like how rare it is and how it flies. He has challenged us to make our own cards about:
 - a bird found in New Zealand,
 - a special place in New Zealand or
 - an event (good or bad) affecting New Zealand's birds.

He also left us with some tracking pads so we can see what kind of animals are in our backyard - are they animals we want, like native birds and lizards, ora animals we don't want like rats and possums?

We looked at some old style traps and talked about how the new traps we have are much more humane as they kill the animals swiftly and don't leave them hurt and suffering.

Thanks Darren. We're looking forward to your visiting again next week and telling us more about how the new game works.

Down the bank...

Nicola hadn't been down the bank yet so we took her on an adventure. We were looking for fauna (especially insects), flora treasure and anything else...

This is what happened:

Nicola goes down the bank from Nicola Stevenson on Vimeo.

Brian (a ranger from the council) came in to talk to us about the fauna in our local area. 

Brian talked to us about pests. He held up a picture of hedgehogs. Hedgehogs look cute, but they eat lots of our native insects. We are holding insect legs in the picture (above). Hedgehogs can eat all of these insects in one night. 

This is poo from different pests. We will investigate what animals the poo has come from. Find out more about pests at:  

http://www.pestdetective.org.nz/

Brian showed us a homemade trap. We have been designing our own traps. 

Watch this space...