Motorcycle ride to Port Levy.
- 1. Going up the Purau Port Levy Road.
- 2. The jetty in Port Levy.
- 3. Basking in the sun in Port Levy.
- 4. View of Purau Bay when going down the Purau Port Levy Road.

#photography #nz #bankspeninsula #ocean #hills #landscape

I spent part of my summer on Banks Peninsula with a team from #LincolnUniversityNZ monitoring lizards, invertebrates, and birds. We also, optimistically, put out a set of bat recorders.

Native bats haven't been reliably sighted on Banks Peninsula in many decades but there's always hope that there's a colony or two out there somewhere. If you know the Peninsula, we put our recorders out at Tutakakahikura, Ellangowan, Panama Rock, Mount Pearce, Hay Reserve, and Montgomery Reserve. All have areas of old growth forest with some gnarly old trees where bats could roost.

Sadly, the results are in and we detected no bats.

#ecology #EcologicalMonitoring #nz #bats #BanksPeninsula

For the past week four of us from #LincolnUniversityNZ were based at Hinewai Reserve on Banks Peninsula, NZ. We visited a set of monitoring sites in and out of the predator control area of the Predator Free Banks Peninsula project. Predator Free Banks Peninsula is primarily targetting brush-tailed possums at the moment and we're interested in how that is affecting birds, lizards, and invertebrates.

We've been doing this for several years so we're also interested in what the general trends are in these animals in this amazing landscape.

We counted, weighed, and photographed all the lizards in our lizard shelters (mostly geckos). Jennifer Gillette is using the unique patterns on geckos' backs and irises to track individuals over the years.

We also brought in our audio recorders, which monitored birds and, optimistically, bats. Bats haven't officially been detected on Banks Peninsula in decades. There's still hope so we put out bat recorders in several of the areas of oldest forest.

We also brought in our invertebrate pitfall traps.

We've got three more days on the Peninsula this coming week, then we can get stuck into identifying the specimens, processing the data, and finding our what the patterns and trends are.

#ecology #fieldwork #EcologicalMonitoring #BanksPeninsula #NZ

An undergraduate student here at #LincolnUniversityNZ, Shuizetinglan, was interested in exploring tide pools so we suggested he visit Inainatu/Pile Bay in Lyttelton Harbour. It has an extensive rocky platform that's exposed at low tide where various intertidal creatures can be found.

Shuizetinglan visited there on the weekend and found several interesting things, like the 5th observation on #iNaturalist from Banks Peninsula of a dwarf brittle seastar, the 1st observation on iNaturalist from Banks Peninsula of a Jewel Anemone, and this, the 1st observation on iNaturalist from Banks Peninsula of a sea spider.

When it comes to local intertidal biodiversity, there's a lot still to document.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/306719391

#marine #intertidal #tidepool #nz #Christchurch #BanksPeninsula #iNaturalistNZ #nature

Last night I was in Little River talking to the Banks Peninsula community about #iNaturalist. We're now approaching 4,000 observers, almost 184,000 observations, and almost 3,700 identfiers for the Port Hills/Banks Peninsula area. There is already so much to celebrate and the observations keep coming every day.

I'm appreciative of all the folk that came out to listen, and who asked lots of excellent questions. I tip my hat to the Living Streams Community Nursery (a Little River based native plant nursery) that organised the evening, and to the Little River Inn that hosted us. Check out the excellent blackboard that the Inn staff put out by the door. 😀

https://inaturalist.nz/observations?place_id=74374&subview=map&verifiable=any

#CitizenScience #nz #BanksPeninsula #iNaturalistNZ

I stopped by these fantastic ancient rocks on a bike ride yesterday. They reek of ancient history.

This is Gebbies Pass on #BanksPeninsula, near #Christchurch, New Zealand. Almost all of Banks Peninsula is extinct volcanoes from 11–5 million years ago, overlaid with wind-blown loess ground off the Southern Alps by glaciers.

I looked it up and this Gebbies rhyolite is way older, late Cretaceous old, formed 72–100 million years old.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mollivan_jon/53826369052/in/dateposted-public/

#geology #nz #rocks

#Aurora #BanksPeninsula
#Astronomy #Picture of the Day

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240517.html

#APOD #NewZealand #AuroraAustralis