PAUATAHANUI THE MAKING OF A RESERVE

Forest and Bird, Volume 16, Issue 3, 1 August 1985, Page 2

PAUATAHANUI THE MAKING OF A RESERVE

Lorre stor oad 43-hectare marshland reserve for wading and shoreline birds at the head of aland wading and shoreline birds have not been widely recognised as being under ma, efor and reclamation. These birds are the larger portion of our rare | sndangiied ci ai "species. et The project is long term with the First phase up tol 986; the completion of facilities for visitors, and tracks and hides, is now the focus of a national appeal launched by the Society to raise $35,000. David Collingwood, prior to retiring from Head Office, was ‘jointly responsible for this project and here he describes the reserve and the work of the Society members in developing it.

) ee the rise behind Pauatahanui Cottage one gazes over a landscape of reeds and glistening pools left by the tide. Pauatahanui Cottage is the oldest building in the historic village of Pauatahanui. Built in 1860 by Thomas Hollis Stace, the cottage nestles below the rise which originally housed Ngatitoa chief Te Rangihaeata’s pa ‘Matai taua’. The pa site was later taken for the 58th Regimental Stockade in 1846 and now is occupied by St Albans Church. The cottage, now owned by the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, has been renovated with the financial assistance of the Stout Trust, while the garden is being developed as a typical settler’s garden of the 1860s. The premises are the base for the Society in its day-to-day management of the Pauatahanui Wildlife Management Reserve, which is across the road from the cottage. Kawhia Harbour and Farewell Spit are the nearest comparable sized areas for wading and migratory birds on the west coast, and although godwits and knots once used Pauatahanui for their New Zealand sojourn, they became seasonal visitors because of man-made disturbances to the habitat. Some years ago the land was extensively drained to produce a cricket ground, a go-cart track, to enable stock grazing and to prevent flooding of neighbouring properties. This has affected almost all of the reserve.

These intrusions have largely become derelict; nature and its tides have gradually overwhelmed the go-cart track and the cricket ground, and the drains are now mostly clogged with rushes. Although evidence of tramplings by cattle and sheep still remain in pockets of oozy mud, nature is re-asserting itself and turning the place into a potentially rich area for both plants and animals. The final modification was the burying of the Kapuni Gas pipeline to Wellington in a trench right across the site in the 1970s. This disturbance was beneficial, however, as it cleared reeds along the easement for the pipeline, thus producing valuable pools and loafing areas for birdlife. (The Society is carefully weeding the route, and whitefaced herons, spur-winged plovers, pied stilts and banded dotterels use it as valuable habitat.) Surprisingly, these major man-made modifications seem to be a boon for the birdlife now that nature has_ reestablished its dominance. The search In 1979 Brian Ellis — our ICBP representative at the time — and I commenced the search for a suitable area to establish a wading bird reserve in the lower North Island. We examined several locations but finally opted for Pauatahanui. With the approval of the Executive, and with President Tony Ellis’s enthusiastic interest, we approached Bing Lucas, who is now

Director-General of Lands, with our proposal. Much has flowed from this meeting; the Domain Board, which had responsibility for Pauatahanui Domain (as the area was then known), voted itself out of office and the area was gazetted as a Reserve for Government Purposes. The intention to vest day-to-day management in Forest and Bird was advertised and the Society was charged with the preparation of a draft management plan. This is a unique arrangement, the first time in New Zealand that a voluntary body has been given the day-to-day management of a Crown reserve. After protracted legal proceedings, and with the considerable assistance of Keith Owen of the Wildlife Service, the draft management plan was finally approved in August 1984. This enabled the Society work on the reserve to start in earnest. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr Peter Tapsell, formally handed the management over on May 13, 1985. Gum-booted efforts Initially a new fence was erected along the north-eastern boundary by Society members to prevent stock from wandering all over the reserve. During the last week of September and first week of October 1984 very high equinoctial tides coincided with our building of the water control structure.

No sooner had we laid the waterproof accelerated concrete than the tides were upon us. Thankfully everything set perfectly. Eric Parker (Upper Hutt), Ron Freeston (Lower Hutt), John Smith (Mana), Frank Galvin (Wellington), Conrad Pharazyn (Upper Hutt), Tony Burgess (Lower Hutt), Kevin Kerr (Kapiti), Jean Luke (Kapiti), Roy Slack (Mana), and others from the five branches, deserve the highest praise for their diligence and hard gum-booted efforts. Further work from these and other ‘‘work parties’’ will continue over the months ahead before the reserve’s planned public opening in late 1986. Noel Hellyer, Deputy Director Wildlife Service, has shared the overall responsibility for the reserve. Noel firmly pulled on his Forest and Bird member’s hat from the beginning of the project and has thrown himself into the thick of planning, site appreciation, and layout and at weekends shared the hard work of fencing, concreting and planting, and in the evenings lecturing on Pauatahanui. The Society and I pay tribute to Noel Hellyer for the privilege of working with him and for his expertise and quietly proffered advice. In 1984, so that facilities could be built near and yet not on the reserve, the Society purchased Lot 7, a block of 1.8 hectares between the Pauatahanui Hall and the garage, with half the funds provided by the QE II National Trust. The five Wellington branches are now raising funds to re-imburse the Society’s initial contribution. This piece of streamside land runs from the roadway opposite the cottage as an access to the reserve. Lot 7 is being landscaped to become an extension of the reserve with tree plantings, ponds, a car and bus park, and picnic ground. The basins and trackways As the tides were regularly inundating the large depressions of the old go-cart track (now called the southern basin) and the cricket ground (northern basin), the birds would flock to these areas to feed during ‘high tide and go elsewhere as the water receded. We therefore decide to retain the water by means of inlet sluices which would trap the receding tides and make it worth the birds’ while to stay. A constant level of water can now be maintained within the northern and southern basins. By constructing in each a number of low islands — some with shells and gravel on top, some with low bushes for cover — safe habitat can be established for shoreline birds such as caspian terns, godwits, spur-winged plovers, banded dotterels, sandpipers and pied stilts. Although island tonstruction is still only at a rudimentary stage, they are already being used by such birds — much to our delight. Suitable shrubs are now being planted as a screen along the tracks. Surprisingly, birds will tolerate a moving head over a shrub screen, but they quickly take to wing if they see any legs and arms

moving. Since we wish to encourage undisturbed nesting, roosting and feeding, the tracks have been located along the edge of the reserve behind plantings of low hedges of plagianthus, olearia and flaxes. Access paths to the hides in the centre of the reserve are being similarly planted. The habitats Society members will soon be planting up the stream banks of the Pauatahanui Stream with overhanging ngaio and flaxes with the aim of introducing the rare brown teal. The extensive rushes and raupo beds provide suitable habitat in places for the fernbird, now absent from the southern North Island. It is proposed to reintroduce these birds with the assistance of the Wildlife Service, after a continuous programme of wild cat, stoat and ferret trapping. At the southern extremity of the reserve fronting onto Pauatahanui Inlet, the prevailing winds have formed a dune of shells and sand, behind which is a swamp of dense raupo and flaxes. The secretive spotless crake inhabits this

swamp, and is more often heard than seen. I have also heard its low purring note near the lower course of Ration Creek within the Reserve. It is hoped this little swamp rail will prosper with our improvements to the habitat. Vegetation The Society aims to protect and enhance the vegetation of the reserve; thus we have adopted very strict rules regarding plantings. For instance all must be cuttings or seedlings from plants already growing on the reserve, or in certain cases from plants we know once grew there, and are still growing nearby within the catchments of the Ration and Pauatahanui Streams which disgorge through the reserve. Members involved in the planting and maintenance have included Nick Lambrechtsen (Wellington), Henry James (Wellington), Euan Nicol (Wellington), Suzy Williams (Lower Hutt), Paul Hughes (Mana), Stan Butcher (Lower Hutt), and many other Society members, their children and friends from the region. Records and sketches from the 1840s have given insights into the likely cover in the higher parts of the reserve which have now been invaded by exotic grasses. It is interesting to note that most exotic plants die when they get their feet in salt water. A stand of dead macrocarpas along the raised bank which once bordered the old cricket ground provides mute evidence of a combined high tide and stream flood which inundated the reserve in the 1960s. The native salt marsh plants have flourished however. A good 80 percent of the reserve is pockmarked with meadows of bright green Selliera radicans and Salicornia australis, with tidal pools and expanses of Samolus repens, the creeping sea primrose, and the yellow Cotula coronoptfolia. The historical nature of the area will be enhanced by a karaka grove to be planted on the Forest and Bird land at the entrance to the reserve. Early European travellers recorded the presence of karaka trees here as a food source for the Maoris of the pa on the hillock above. Other parts of this access land along the stream boundary will be planted in typical coastal forest.

PAUATAHANUI RESERVE DEVELOPMENT

Three rare and endangered plants are present. Cotula dioica ssp Monoica is a little ‘‘batchelor’s button’’ growing vigorously in one place where earth had been thrown up from a ditch last century. Colin Ogle, Society member and a Wildlife Service botanist, has produced a plant list for the reserve. He excitedly showed me this native plant, saying it was a threatened species only present elsewhere on the Makara coast some 40 km away. Needless to say Colin has grown many cuttings of this plant for expanding its numbers in the reserve. Mimulus repens, New Zealand musk, is also a rare plant of the Wellington region, known from only one other locality. It was found in a drain within the reserve. Hiding in one location among the sea of reeds, is a small very rare reed of the Wellington region, Schoenus nitens. Its protection is now thankfully assured within the reserve, which is possibly its only site. Wildlife aplenty The whole reserve is built on thick beds of shells apparently overwhelmed by silt run-off from the catchment when it was cleared of forest during the last century. These beds are almost a metre thick — whole shells unbroken as if they had been suffocated in their prime. Now the mud flats are the lively home of the same bivalves, turrets, pipis, cockles and the large wedge shells Tellina (Macomona) liliana. The sand burrowing and surface dwelling whelks are also common. Of great interest are the mudflat snails

Amphibola crenata. These archaic snails have lungs and represent a stage in the evolution of animals leaving the sea for the land. Plentiful in tidal pools, they choose to concentrate along the high tide fringes where the water covering lasts only an hour or so. They burrow beneath the surface when the tide arrives and emerge with the ebb to resume their feeding on the rich organic food of the muds. Feeding continuously, they produce an endless trail of almost pure faecal matter. Also near high tide mark are the little burrowing crabs, Helice crassa whose tunnel entrances are everywhere. Their companion species is the stalk-eyed mud crab, Macrophthalmus hirtipes. While building the water control structures I noticed these crabs indulging in free rides on the tide. One was seen to travel up-stream for 100 metres! When the tide was at full spate over the weir, hundreds of small yellow-eyed mullet took the roller-coaster run into the basin beyond. Needless to say, the resident white faced herons busied themselves marshalling these fish into the shallows of the basin before gobbling them up. On 25 and 26 November 1984 high tides were trapped and held for the first time by the southern flap gate, and the birds arrived on cue to enjoy the water which thankfully didn’t ebb away. The increase in birdlife was immediate. For the first time, three caspian terns were sighted and the pied stilt residents rose from 5 to 30. A rare pectoral sandpiper arrived, also two spur winged plovers and there was an immediate increase in ducks, not all of them mallards. Sharp-tailed sandpipers faced

the. wind in a flock of 15. We rushed around sealing up leaks in the basin and went home satisfied with the words of an Ornithological Society bird counter who had spent the day surveying Pauatahanui Inlet: ‘‘We only found one tern, I came here and most of the birds are in the reserve’’. That said it all for us. The work ahead includes the building of two bridges and the completion of nearly 3 km of tracks. Two out of the planned seven fresh water ponds have been established and one of the seven hides has been built. The planting of thousands of shrubs, drain clearance, contouring, pond and island formation and the building of a visitor/reserve centre are yet to be completed. All this first phase is planned to be finished by the end of 1986, at a cost of $77,000, but because of helpful assistance from the Stout Trust and the QEIT National Trust, plus other funding, there remains just $35,000 to be subscribed. A national appeal has been set up to raise this, to ensure the completion of the planned first phase, which will allow members and the public to use the reserve and its facilities we