Newsletter #55
Tēnā koutou,
Covid-19 has tested all of patience, so I think it\’s safe to say that being back into Level 1 (outside of Auckland) now that Spring is here, is a huge relief. The birds are arriving back here in the South Island and there is much work to be done.
Bird survey dates (valid as of 28 September) are in the image below. This image is a screen grab from a shared database and includes backup dates. The dates are also listed under Events on our Facebook page. Bird surveys are run by different organisations: DOC, ECan, local river care groups, or local groups supported by DOC or ECan. Some take just a few hours and cover a short stretch of a river. Others are held over several days. Please contact each organiser, not us, for specific details if you would like to be involved.
Annual membership fees are now. Full membership ($20/year) entitles you to vote, hold office, and access the \’member\’s area\’ on the website where you will find minutes from previous meetings, funding applications, funding reports, annual audit reports etc. Casual membership is free. If you would like to renew your full membership or upgrade to full membership you can do so online: http://braidedrivers.org/home/membership.
The next BRaid meeting will be (fingers crossed as we have had several changes due to Covid) our AGM at 2pm Friday 09 October at the DOC offices, Nga Mahi Road, Sockburn. This will be followed at 2.30pm by our GM.
Ngā mihi,
Sonny Whitelaw manager@braid.org.nz
Braided River Bird Surveys:
News:
- See ECan\’s new online storyboard: Braided rivers: Canterbury\’s iconic treasures
- Sunday 27 September was World Rivers Day. DOC has a fantastic blog on rivers and their importance as part of a broader catchment system.
- Christchurch EnviroHub exhibition on braided rivers at the Kiosk, Christchurch Botanical Gardens until 27 October.
- While you\’re in Christchurch, check out the colony of black-billed gulls that have returned to nest in an exposed basement of a quake-damaged building.
- The new Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy 2020 is now available online
- New funding rounds opened for Freshwater Improvement Fund: as part of the Government\’s Jobs for Nature programme.
- The Resource Management (Measurement and Reporting of Water Takes) Regulations 2010 have been amended. The amendments took effect 3 September 2020.
- Note, this is NOT to be confused with the National Party\’s policy on freshwater, which is to revert to twentieth century unregulated farming practices by lunchtime the day after the election (Radio NZ).
- Environment Southland also sees rivers quite differently. Apparently any pollution from cows on the gravel bar of a river in Southland is are magically retained behind the fence.
- A quick insight into the Government recommendations to replace the RMA: Doing right by the economy and environment (Newsroom)
- Dotterel clocks up 4500km on winter getaway to New Caledonia (Stuff).
- Unfortunately, this was soon followed by: Extinction fears rise after vulnerable banded dotterel nests wiped out in Kaikōura (TVNZ)
- Report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton describes estuary management as mind-bogglingly complex and constantly subject to change.
- The World Wildlife Fund Community and Education Funding round is now open (closing date is October 09).
- We may still be a long way from the Trans-Tasman bubble and birdwatching holidays overseas, but BirdLife Australia are sending you the next best thing – free access to their magazine archive.
- Some good news from a country in meltdown: “Like the clear crisp notes of the wood thrush, today’s court decision cuts through all the noise and confusion to unequivocally uphold the most effective bird conservation law on the books. Sarah Greenberger at the National Audubon Society celebrates a court decision overturning the US government’s weakening of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act
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13,000 images on New Zealand Birds Online – and one funky hairdo (Te Papa blog)
- With biodiversity in rapid decline, here\’s a game that might actually be more than just fun
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ARRG has built heaps of new DOC200 traps. Only $70 each the funds raised go to help ARRG\’s work protecting braided river birds.
- Next time you go down to the Ashburton River mouth and hapua, check out some of the 21 new signs designed by BRaid . The aim was to keep these visually linked to the Ashley-Rakahuri estuary signs.
Bird Research:
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Newfound brain structure explains why some birds are so smart—and maybe even self-aware (Science magazine)
- A cortex-like canonical circuit in the avian forebrain (the original research cited in the above article)
- Part bird, part dinosaur, part reptile: Tuatara genome reveals diverse insights into a remarkable reptile (Nature article)
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Neonicotinoids and decline in bird biodiversity in the United States (Nature Sustainability)
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Short-term behavioural impact contrasts with long-term fitness consequences of biologging in a long-lived seabird (Nature scientific reports)
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Assessing the effect of wind farms in fauna with a mathematical model (Nature scientific reports)
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Birds have peramorphic skulls, too: anatomical network analyses reveal oppositional heterochronies in avian skull evolution (Nature communications)
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Successful breeding predicts divorce in plovers (Nature scientific reports)
