Tūpari Reserve

31/07/2026

It's been cold out there, and the snow has been lingering on the hilltops. Our go-to dinner has become soup cooked over the fire, with our homegrown pumpkin harvest slowly being siphoned into our bellies.

Our rats will also be feeling winter's pinch. The abundance of flowers and seeds produced in autumn has dwindled, and insect numbers have dropped as many species overwinter as eggs, larvae, or pupae. The food that remains is often less nutritious, so they need to eat more just to meet their energy needs. At the same time, they have to burn even more energy simply to keep warm.

These pressures can create the perfect storm. After a long, cold winter, rat populations can decline dramatically because some simply don't have enough food or body reserves to survive until spring.

This emerging velvet foot mushroom has just become a very welcome meal for a hungry rat. While we don't usually think of fungi as rat food, they'll happily eat almost anything when resources are scarce.

In a mild winter, more rats survive through to spring. That's not good news for our native nesting birds, as each female rat that survives is a prodigious, precocious and prolific breeder.

Perhaps the saying should be "breed like rats" rather than "breed like rabbits."

Out of curiosity, I compared the two. A female rat is pregnant for just 21 to 23 days, gives birth to 6 to 14 pups per litter, and can have up to six or seven litters each year. That means a single female can produce around 42 to 98 pups in a year.

Rabbits are no slouches either. A doe is pregnant for 28 to 32 days, gives birth to 6 to 12 kits, and usually has four to six litters a year. That's around 24 to 72 kits annually. The real difference is that young rats can start breeding themselves just five to eight weeks after they're born. So by the end of the year, many of a lady rat's daughters are already producing litters of their own. That's when population growth becomes truly explosive (and dangerous for the bird and invertebrate population).

So, while it's tempting to wish winter away, perhaps we should be a little careful what we wish for. A proper cold winter is one of nature's ways of keeping rat numbers in check, giving our native birds a better chance when spring arrives.

So let's protect and celebrate winter. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! Somewhat macabrely, that thought warms the cockles of my heart almost as much as a bowl of pumpkin soup.

27/07/2026

Dedicated Tūpari Reserve supporters might remember a post almost a year ago celebrating Mark's personal best of 600 wilding pines felled in a single day.

Last week he finally, in the words of Sir Edmund Hillary, "knocked the bu**er off" and finished removing all the visible wilding pine seedlings from the upper part of the old pine plantation.

For those of you who enjoy statistics as much as Mark, here are the numbers:
• 2.4 hectares cleared
• Around 0.5 pines per square metre
• 711 days from start to finish
• 44 wilding pine sessions

One dogged person versus:
• 12,445 wilding pines
• 93 gums
• 2 silver birch
• 1 tree lucerne
• 1 willow

On average, each session cleared 283 pines across about 550 square metres. Uncharacteristically, he failed to count how many gorse and blackberry prickles he brought home embedded in his skin after each session.

If killing wilding pines were a Commonwealth Games sport, I reckon he'd have a fair chance of making the New Zealand team for Glasgow. Sadly, like many worthy pursuits, it didn't make the games programme.

There are still a few pines to tackle on the lower slopes, but the native seedlings are now enjoying the sunshine. Instead of trying to outrun fast-growing pines, the young native trees now only have to compete with gorse, which is a much easier race to win.

18/07/2026

All good things must come to an end, and when a tree dies, nature sends in an army of undertakers.

One of my favourites is Stereum illudens, a native fungus that quietly gets to work recycling dead wood. Hidden within the timber is its mycelium, a network of microscopic fungal threads that slowly digests the wood from the inside out. Wood is made up of around half cellulose, which forms the structural framework of the tree, and about a quarter to a third lignin, an incredibly tough polymer that acts like a natural cement, binding the cellulose fibres together and giving wood its strength and rigidity.

Stereum illudens is a white rot fungus, one of the few organisms capable of breaking down both cellulose and lignin. As its mycelium digests these two components, the wood becomes pale, fibrous and often almost bleached white. By comparison, brown rot fungi mainly consume the cellulose, leaving behind the brown, lignin-rich wood that eventually shrinks and cracks into dry, cube-like blocks.

Like us, though, Stereum illudens prefers the right working conditions. For fungi, rain is an aphrodisiac. When the wood becomes moist enough, the hidden mycelium sends up fruiting bodies. These leathery shelves have just one purpose: to produce and spread billions of spores. The smooth underside of the shelf is called the hymenium - the fungus's spore factory. Every extra millimetre of new shelf growth creates more hymenium and consequently more spores.

The common supermarket mushroom (Agaricus bisporus) produces a fruiting body that lasts only a few days, while Stereum illudens fruiting bodies can persist for months or even years. They dry out during periods of drought but spring back into spore production when the rain returns. This stop-start growth creates subtle concentric bands across the upper surface of each shelf. Rather than annual rings, these bands are a diary of the fungus's life, recording bursts of growth during wet conditions separated by dormant spells in dry weather.
It's not unlike our work at Tūpari Reserve. We make serious inroads during warm, dry weather, but when the cold and rain set in, the loppers and herbicide is put away, and we wait patiently for better conditions before heading back outside.

12/07/2026

I'm really looking forward to this! It should be a fascinating talk hosted by our local Ātaahua Community Trust at the Kaituna Hall. Good company, a warm bowl of soup, and the chance to learn more about wasps sounds like a pretty good way to spend a winter Saturday evening.

Join us for a warm bowl of homemade soup and an evening discovering the fascinating world of wasps.

Our guest speaker, Mateus Detoni, is an ecologist with a special interest in wasps, lecturer in Lincoln University's Department of Pest Management and Conservation, and a researcher with Manaaki Whenua/Landcare Research.

Mateus will explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of wasps, including:

🐝 Why introduced German and common wasps have become such successful invaders
🐝 What drives the aggression of introduced wasps

🐝 The important role of native wasps in our ecosystems
🐝 An update on hornets in New Zealand

Mateus is an engaging and passionate speaker, so whether you're curious, cautious, or simply want to know why wasps behave the way they do, this promises to be an entertaining and informative evening.

📍 Where: Kaituna Hall, 2531 Christchurch Akaroa Road, Ātaahua, Christchurch 7672
🕕 When: 6.00 pm, Saturday 18 July 2026
🥣 Cost: Koha for soup and bread (all proceeds will support the Kaituna Red Cross).

Come along, enjoy some great company, have a night off cooking, and discover there's much more to wasps than just a painful sting!

Everyone is welcome.

07/07/2026

This week's weather has left us feeling a little like we're under house arrest. Instead of working outdoors, we've been tackling admin, emptying the inbox and scribbling jobs on the backs of weet-bix boxes. We can't wait to get back outside - but compared with a female trapdoor spider, we've got it easy.

Female Cantuaria spiders spend about 20 years living in a 10–20 cm long silk-lined tunnel and rarely venture completely outside their front door. They are, quite literally, on home detention. They're big, scary-looking spiders that, in a police line-up, would probably be wrongly convicted purely on appearance. In reality, they are incredibly reclusive and live an astonishingly long, sedentary life.

Technically, saying they "wouldn't hurt a fly" is stretching the analogy a little. They would happily hurt flies, beetles, and just about any other unlucky insect that wanders near their perfectly camouflaged trapdoor, which is left ever so slightly ajar whenever they're feeling peckish. As dinner passes, they lunge out, grab dinner, deliver a fatal nip, and retreat underground to enjoy their meal. Importantly, they keep one leg inside the burrow while making the hit-and-run, preventing the door from swinging shut behind them.

The smaller males lead a very different life. They reach maturity after two to five years before setting off on a quest for love in the cooler months. Fasting as they wander, they follow the alluring pheromones of receptive females. Perhaps that makes female trapdoor spiders the original cougars. Fortunately for the young suitors, they usually die of hunger and exhaustion rather than being eaten by their older lovers.

Most spiders are pretty rubbish parents. Trapdoor spiders, however, are exceptional stay-at-home mums. They provide protection, shelter and food for their spiderlings until they're around 18 months old and ready to head off and dig burrows of their own.

So, while we're hoping for a break in the weather and a chance to get back out into the reserve, spare a thought for the female trapdoor spider. Twenty years of home detention with only the occasional takeaway grabbed from the front door isn't everyone's idea of a good life, but it's a lifestyle that's served trapdoor spiders remarkably well for around 85 million years.

03/07/2026

Wellington holds a special place in M&M's hearts, and this trip has been something of a journey down memory lane.

More than 30 years ago, Megan was studying Botany at Victoria University of Wellington. One of the biggest (and certainly the most time-consuming!) assignments was to collect, identify, press and mount 30 plant specimens to create a herbarium. Anyone who has spent weeks building a collection for a university project will know that you become surprisingly attached to your specimens.

It was a rather lovely feeling to be reunited with those specimen now housed in Te Papa after more than three decades. My paper-thin botanical babies were neatly catalogued and stored in cool, dark, low-humidity conditions, safely protected from insects and decay. They looked just as I remembered them (although my handwriting was less copperplate and more chicken scratchings!) Like most of the collection, they are also digitised, and are accessed by people around the world online.

Herbaria are much more than filing cabinets full of dead, flat plant friends. They are invaluable scientific collections that document our flora through time and provide material for research.

All the effort and academic angst suddenly felt worthwhile. We were very grateful to botany team Leon and Bridget for a generous, indulgent and fascinating behind-the-scenes tour of Te Papa's herbarium. It was wonderfully reassuring to know that my specimens are not only still being lovingly cared for, but are continuing to contribute to science all these years later.

https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/agent/46381

30/06/2026

Every second Sunday morning, M&M spend a few hours doing "community weeding" with our neighbours on the banks of the Kaituna River. This weekend, however, we were in Wellington, so we swapped our usual patch for some "make-up" weeding at the Kumutoto Restoration Project.

Kumutoto Stream was once one of the most important freshwater streams flowing into Wellington Harbour. For mana whenua, it is a place of great significance where foremothers birthed. Following the acquisition of the land Wellington now sits on in 1839 the new settlement grew rapidly and the stream was progressively piped underground from the 1860s making way for roads and buildings.

Today, only around 100 metres of Kumutoto Stream remains above ground. The 0.3-hectare restoration site surrounding this short stretch is cared for by a dedicated team of volunteers. Many are Victoria University students (including Dan, Tūpari's summer intern) who are involved thanks in part to the project's proximity to the university.

The forest surrounding the stream is typical of many inner-city green spaces in Wellington - a mix of native and exotic trees, with an understorey heavily invaded by exotic ground covers such as tradescantia and ivy, along with an accumulation of decades of rubbish. Our task for the morning was to tackle the carpet of tradescantia, stuffing it into large black sacks to decompose.

It was inspiring to see what a few years of dedicated volunteer effort has achieved. The ivy that once was choking the stream has been cleared and much of the understory is now planted with natives. The stream is healthier, and another small corner of Wellington's natural and cultural heritage is slowly being restored.

27/06/2026

We are taking a short break from the reserve this week. One of the things you miss most about home is your own pillow - and the good night's sleep it helps provide.

Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to pillows: soft or firm, thick or thin, feather or foam. Our forebears had far fewer choices. Ancient Egyptians apparently rested their heads on wooden or stone headrests, while some early Māori used carefully shaped wooden neck rests or bundles of grasses, ferns and other vegetation. Early European settlers stuffed pillows with whatever was available - feathers if they could afford them, or straw, reeds and moss if they could not.

One of the most widely used moss for the purpose of pillow filling was Hypnum cupressiforme, a species with an almost worldwide distribution that is also common throughout New Zealand. Its genus name, Hypnum, was coined in 1741 as a nod to the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos. While many mosses are notoriously difficult to identify, this one is relatively straightforward thanks to its distinctive plait-like arrangement of overlapping leaves.

Beyond being soft and springy, Hypnum cupressiforme may also have had another advantage. It contains natural compounds that can inhibit the growth of some microbes which may have helped discourage insects, making it a surprisingly practical pillow stuffing. So tuck that little fact away in the dark recesses of your mind. It might come in handy if you ever survive the zombie apocalypse or your Airbnb pillows are less than satisfactory.

22/06/2026

After a few cold nights, we are becoming increasingly focused on firewood. By our calculations, each piece we burn has been handled at least ten times before it finally reaches the flames. Cutting, collecting, splitting, and stacking firewood takes a fair amount of human energy, but on cold winter nights we are well rewarded for our efforts.

When splitting wood, each round is carefully read for cracks, grain, and the spot where an axe blow will yield the greatest reward. Every piece of wood tells a story through its knots, branches, and the fortunes of each year's growth. The messages I enjoy most are those hidden just beneath the bark. Some macrocarpa logs reveal intricate doodlings etched into the timber - shield-like markings that tell the life story of the cypress bark beetle (Phloeosinus cupressi): eggs, growth, metamorphosis, and flight (or more crudely; sh****ng, sibling rivalry, self-realisation and escape).

The story begins with love. Two bark beetles, whose ancestors arrived from California more than a century ago, hook up before the female excavates a long central gallery beneath the bark and lays her eggs along its sides. When the eggs hatch, the tiny larvae begin feeding, each tunnelling away from its siblings as it makes its own way in life.

At the end of each tunnel, the grub creates a slightly larger chamber - a temporary changing room, where it pupates and transforms into an adult beetle. The new beetle's first task is to leave the family nest. It chews a small exit hole through the bark and takes flight in search of a mate and a suitable tree in which to begin the cycle again.

As I pick up a piece of firewood for its tenth and final time, I pause to admire the bark carvings and contemplate the beetle family histories etched into the timber. Then, abandoning sentiment in favour of warmth, I do what any philistine would do and feed it into the log burner.

20/06/2026