Be a Good Neighbour For Nature

12/10/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BuSTVkuSA/

15/09/2025

Voting papers are arriving in mail boxes. Do you know which candidates will be best for our local enviroment? Why not re-watch how they performed when we asked them at our recent meet the candidates events!

Mayoralty, Albany Ward, and North Shore Ward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7l_b5pqv60
Upper Harbour Local Board: https://youtu.be/j6XQZ9aqhOg

04/09/2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7l_b5pqv60

On Monday the 1st of September candidates for Auckland Mayoralty, Albany Ward, and North Shore Ward where invited to share their views on looking after our backyard.

24/08/2025

One way you can be a good neighbour for nature is by voting for candidates in the Auckland Council election who support looking after the environment. Recently some of the candidates for the Upper Harbour Local Board gave their views on looking after our neighbourhood. Hear what they had to say in the YouTube recording: https://youtu.be/j6XQZ9aqhOg

30/05/2025

Following on from the last neighbour I introduced, Pepe Para Riki, let me introduce another one of our beautiful native butterflies. This one is called Kahukōwhai or the Yellow Admiral Butterfly.

Like other butterflies its caterpillars rely on specific plants for their food. But this caterpillar finds its food from one of the least friendly kinds of plants, nettles. Nettles are known for their stinging barbs, that contain chemicals that induce pain similar to a wasp sting. Our endemic Red Admiral Butterflies, also called Kahukura, are less common that Kahukōwhai, because they typically live in forests and rely heavily on native species of nettle such as Ongaonga or Tree Nettle (Urtica ferox). Ongaonga is one of New Zealand’s most poisonous native plants! While Kahukōwhai are more common because they also enjoy eating introduced nettle species in pastures such as Common Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica). These grow in damp, semi-shady areas in loamy, nitrogen-rich soil. As such they can be quite common under trees on dairy farms, where cattle seek shelter from the sun. However, in many areas these nettles are considered a w**d and it is unlawful to propagate or distribute them.

While Kahukōwhai and Kahukura are beautiful, not everyone is going to want to be a good neighbour in their suburban back yard. That should not mean however that we can’t put some space aside for them. Establishing controlled reserves and gardens with native nettles will help bring these butterflies back to pollinate flowering plants in local gardens. While encouraging your local council to allow people to plant Common Stinging Nettle in their gardens will increase the prevalence of Kahukōwhai catapillars. There is no need to consider these nettles a w**d in urban areas, because they nitrogen rich soil they are unlikely to spread outside of where they are planted (unless you have cows or chickens in your neighbourhood). A less troublesome food source for Kahukōwhai are Parietaria debilis, P. australis, P. cardiostegia, and P. Judaica.

You can read more about Kahukōwhai at the Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust: https://www.nzbutterflies.org.nz/species-info/yellow-admiral/

Photo curtesy of nicholasmaynenz at https://inaturalist.nz/observations/19346605

28/05/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Ct5hBANbQ/

Have you read our recent article about why cats hunt, even when they’re not hungry? 🐱

With the right enrichment, you can help your cat express these natural behaviours in a way that reduces the risk to wildlife.

Read more 👉https://ow.ly/BHmV50VZKAq

21/05/2025

Many of you humans know about Monarch Butterflies, and plant swan plants to attract them. But we have some beautiful butterfly neighbours that have been here a lot longer. Today let me introduce Pepe Para Riki, North Island Coastal Copper Butterfly.

Just like Monarch Butterflies, Pepe Para Riki rely on specific plant species for their caterpillars to eat before they pupate into beautiful butterflies. For Pepe Para Riki those plants are from the Muehlenbeckia family, and we call them Pohuehue. As these plants have been cleared from urban areas, to make way for costal developments, the butterflies have disappeared. Another reason for them declining is the caterpillars being predated by wasps.

You can be a good neighbour to Pepe Para Riki by planting Pohuehue in your garden; especially if you live by the coast. Another good plant to put in your garden is Koromiko or Veronica stricta. Many pollinating insects, including our native butterflies, enjoy the nectar of Koromiko and other Veronica and h**e species. Finally, and this goes without saying, exotic wasp species are a pest for you and many of our wild neighbours; and their nests should be destroyed when you find them (for larger nests always get the help of a professional).

More information about how to support our native butterflies can be found in this Butterfly breeding guid by Forest and Bird:https://www.forestandbird.org.nz/sites/default/files/2018-05/Butterfly%20Breeding%20Guide.pdf

Photo curtesy of nicholasmaynenz from https://inaturalist.nz/observations/2550541

06/05/2025

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/560115/wildlife-hospital-says-public-light-displays-are-contributing-to-native-seabird-groundings

17/04/2025

This week I want to introduce you to a whole family of neighbours. Each one of these feathered friends have their own name; including the Oi, T**i, and Taiko; but collectively you call them Petrels or Procellariiformes. Aotearoa has a lot of petrels and they have played an import part in our biological history. Of the world’s 114 species of petrel, 37 breed here, and 14 of these only breeds here. And it is only when they breed that I get to meet them. I live in the forest, but these feathered friends spend most of their lives on the open ocean, and only come to the forest to breed. But when they do they transfer a lot of nutrients (in their poo) from the ocean to the forest. Before you humans arrived, millions of petrels nested in our forests, and helped the forest to grow strong and healthy.

Now their numbers are a lot smaller, as overfishing impacts their ocean food, deforestation takes away the safe places for them to breed, and introduced predators kill them when they are most defenceless. Some of our human friends, including A Rocha Aotearoa and the Karioi Project (https://arocha.org.nz/karioi-project), are working hard to ensure they have safe places to breed. If you want to learn more about Petrels and the work of the Karioi Project watch the video on their website.

However, even when young petrel fledglings leave the nest, they are still not safe. One of the recent threats to petrels has been light pollution. As cities like Auckland use more and more LED lights, such as those that light up the Harbour Bridge and Sky Tower, more and more petrels are becoming confused and injured when they crash into mad made structures. Thankfully some more human friends are doing their best to come to the rescue of these feathered friends. The wonderful people of BirdCare Aotearoa (https://birdcareaotearoa.org.nz) are rescuing these injured birds and nursing some of them back to life. It is hard work and not all of them make it, but you can support them financially by donating at their give a little page: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/lost-from-sea-light-impacted-seabirds

Another way you can be a good neighbour for these feathered friends is by reducing light pollution. In your own homes you can make sure garden lights are directing light towards the ground, planting lots of trees and other plants to defuse light pollution, and just turning more lights off in autumn when petrels are fledging. You could also do your part to influence others by writing to organisations like Vector, Sky City, and Waka Kotahi and asking them to turn down their Auckland light displays in autumn.

A special thank you to BirdCare Aotearoa for you love of our native birds and the presentation you gave to North Shore Forest and Bird recently, which included the slide in this post.

15/04/2025

"Potential to catastrophically impact forest structure."

Would you like this plant growing in your backyard - we definitely don't! Please help us control moth plant before these pods pop and send thousands more seeds out.

01/04/2025

29/03/2025

Today’s neighbour is our friend Tūī. Well that is the name you probably know them by. But if you have lived as long as I have you will realise that is not always what they have been called. Different mana whenua had several names for them, these include kōkōtaua; kōkōtea; kōkōuri; kōpūrehe; kouwha; kukari; pikari; pitui; tākaha; takahē; tataki; teoteo; tute. But when a European explorer heard their sound in the forest and asked what it was, they where told it was Tūī, by which they meant it was a beautiful bird song.

Mana whenua have recognised the oratory skills of Tūī for a long time. Not only are they fantastic singers, they can mimic other noises, including human speech. As such to associate someone with the Tui is to compliment them on their ability to speak or sing.

You can be a good neighbour to Tūī by being a bit of a Tui and using your voice to share the message of this page. We want everyone to be a good neighbour for nature. So please like and share our posts.

To hear a Tūī mimicking human speak check out Woof Woof at the Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqF33vc_q68

Photo curtesy of Enzo Giordani (this Tūī is attacking its own reflection in his window): https://inaturalist.nz/observations/2637218