Tara on the coast north of Thames

TUATEAWA BIRD SPOT: TARANUI, THE CASPIAN TERN.

Weighing in at around 700g. and with a wingspan of 1.4m. this is biggest member of the tern family. It is mostly coastal and can take fish, like flounder or yellow eyed mullet, up to a length of 25cm.

It is not a common species but it is also not endangered. There are believed to be 50,000 pairs worldwide and 1,000 of these pairs are found in NZ. They are not gregarious, apart from when nesting. This pair were seen on the Tuateawa shore but there is usually at least one pair on Waikawau beach. There is reported to be a breeding colony at Whangapoua.

The tern that we see most often is the White Fronted Tern or Tara. It is much lighter at 160g. and is very gregarious when feeding and breeding. They seem to appear from nowhere when a school of fish is forced to the surface by the larger ones down below. Like all the terns they are very agile fliers and can pick small fish from the surface or just below it. The Taranui is sometimes known as the swallow of the sea because of it's agility but its a name that seems to suit all of the terns.

Flowering now!

This magnificent pohutakawa is in full bloom on the slopes of Whanake. The image would have been better but Sunday was a day of variable weather! Elsewhere the pohutakawas were just starting to bloom, to celebrate the beginning of Coromandel's Pohutakawa Festival.

Down on the Tuateawa shore, protected by overhanging pohutakawa, the rengarenga lilies were also in full bloom. It is very pleasing to see the number of young seedlings growing at their base.

1080

There are 214 pages in the Environmental Risk Management Authority (E.R.M.A.) report of 2007 in relation to the use of 1080 in NZ. It is available online. I cannot lay claim to having read every page but it does come across as a document of integrity. The inquiry was a lengthy procedure and involved many submissions. Concerns covered a range of issues, ecosystem degradation, protection of endangered species, human health , animal welfare, death of game animals such as deer and pigs, consultation processes in relation to aerial drops, T.B. control and many others. The overall impression is of individuals and groups putting forward well researched points with a sincere desire to be certain that the hearing was well informed.

E.R.M.A. has the responsibility of evaluating these conflicting viewpoints to produce an overall resolution. Evaluation seems to involve identifying both positive and negative effects of 1080 on the basis of evidence submitted. The effects themselves are quantified verbally on a scale that ranges from a MASSIVE effect down to a MINIMAL effect. As an example, it was determined that no longer being able to use 1080 would have a MASSIVE negative effect in terms of ecosystem degradation. It is really worth looking at the tables in the report where these findings are presented as it is the real nub of the whole issue.

The E.R.M.A. determination was positive in terms of 1080, but it did make the reservation that it was also a necessary evil. It recommended that research be carried out into finding an alternative and also suggested other areas, such as health impacts, where there was a lack of information. It noted a majority concern with the aerial dropping of 1080 but also, repeatedly, made the point that, without it, ground baiting would be much less effective and outcomes would be more negative.

E.R.M.A. is a regulatory body and, in it's findings, considerably tightened up on 1080 application, particularly with respect to the aerial method. These regulations apply not only to D.O.C. but also to anyone else involved in the use of 1080, like regional councils. It has now assumed a monitoring role over all aerial applications and requires a report, subsequent to completion, on all aspects.

In Tuateawa we enjoy the increasing benefits that arise from local conservation efforts. The work of Habitat Tuateawa and M.E.G. are well backed up by D.O.C. drops of 1080 in the larger

areas that surround us. The thought of them going into reverse due to the lack of 1080 is hard to contemplate.

1080 made it possible for us to have robins on the Peninsula!

There should always be debate on these issues. New information comes to hand which might modify our views. Circumstances could arise to make us less dependent on 1080. The recent Poison Free Campaign has made a few good points but has disappointed by not sticking to the issues, preferring to question the sincerity of D.O.C. and also E.R.M.A. "Playing the man rather than the ball" is not a good look. They need to check their facts a little more closely. One member claimed that the recent death of dogs on Auckland beaches was caused by 1080. The independent Cawthron Institute was able to identify the poison as originating in sea slugs washed up on the beaches. There are other dubious statements. If credibility is to be questioned Poison Free should look a little closer to home. If they shape up and do their homework they may be able to make a real contribution.

COROMANDEL, how it got its name.

Around 300B.C. Alexander the Great was conquering much of the known world including a part of northern India. At the same time in India's south, a new dynasty, the Cholas, was establishing itself. It was a Tamil speaking Hindu kingdom that lasted well into the 13th Century. At it's height it encompassed some 3.6 million sq. km.

The world took a few turns and western traders established themselves on the Indian coast. In time the English East India Company controlled, and virtually ruled, the subcontinent. The Portugese, though, were some of the first on the scene. They translated the Tamil for Land Of The Cholas as CHOLAMANDALUM. To the English, further translation made this into the Coromandel Coast. Most recently we have become aware of this region when it was devastated by the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004.

The vessel we know as H.M.S.S. Coromandel was built in India from teak timber in Calcutta by the East India Company. They used it to transport their troops and at that stage it was known as the Cuvera. It became H.M.S Malabar in 1804 when it was bought up by the British Admiralty. It was refitted and mounted 56 guns but it never saw battle. In 1805 the final definitive battle of the Napoleonic Wars took place. After the peace, resulting from The Battle Of Trafalgar, there was a lesser requirement for vessels of this type. She was refitted as a store ship, the extra S in it's name coming from this store function. In 1815 it was renamed the H.M.S.S. Coromandel, the second of four vessels to be so named in the Navy.

She made only one visit to NZ. and that was in 1820. She had acted as a convict ship on her way from England. Convicts and their military guards were dropped of in both Hobart and Sydney. She spent nearly nine months in Coromandel Harbour, then known as Waiau. It took this long to gather a load of kauri spars for the Admiralty.

A passenger of the vessel, the Rev. Samuel Marsden, transfered the name of the vessel to the location, and eventually, the peninsula. If he had known he might well have considered the name to have "heathen" origins. Then the Coromandel could have been named after something more biblical, like Bethlehem! Marsden himself is a contradictory character. In N.S.W. he seemed to have every option well covered. He received land as a settler, bought more and ended up with 3,000 acres. This he worked with convict labour,he was also a judge and a member of the clergy. In Australia he was known as "The Flogging Parson" A description of one of his floggings, written it must be noted, by one of his religious opposites, is quite horrific. Three hundred lashes, with flesh and blood hitting spectators some 15m. distant! In NZ he has a more benign image and his name is associated with both religious and academic institutions to this day. It should be noted that he introduced the grapevine to NZ! On the debit side, members of the Church Missionary Society, who he represented, got mixed up in gun running. Not a very Christian message to give your converts! To his credit he did dismiss these contributors to the Maori Musket Wars. A recent biography describes him as having "an incurable psychological impairment". Even so he managed some incredible achievements.

As for H.M.S.S. Coromandel, she returned to the UK with her load of kauri spars. The quality was good but the cost was twice that of material sourced in Virginia. She did not return to NZ. Eventually She was converted into a prison hulk and acted in that role in Bermuda from 1828 to 1853 and was then broken up.

In England breaking up of naval vessels was a sort of recycling. Many an English pub has beams in it's structure that once sailed the seas. It would be great to think of some friendly hostelry in Bermuda, its patrons protected by timbers that once formed H.M.S.S. Coromandel.

TUATEAWA TREE HUGGERS?

Well, not really. This is a bit of kiwi "can do' in operation. A ball of twine, a pair of scissors, some ingenuity and minor acrobatics was all it took! This kauri is on the slopes of Whanake. One of the few to escape the axe during during the mayhem of the colonial and post colonial period.

It's girth measured PRECISELY 4.81m. Less accurate observations and calculations suggest a total volume of timber approximating 25 cubic m. Not really the way to think about such a beautiful tree, but it was the colonial perspective.

It is really just a baby although probably well into it's second century. It is worth giving it a value in current terms because it helps to explain why these trees were cut at such a prodigious rate in the past. An exact value for sawn and dressed kauri timber could be around NZ$ 2 000/cubic m. This would make this Tuateawa specimen worth around NZ$ 50 000. The biggest Northland kauri has a volume, including it's major branches, in excess of 500 cubic m. It is a million dollar tree but it's true value is not monetary.

Today little kauri is milled other than sub fossil material, buried by the many cataclysmic events of the past few thousand years. Logging does still continue elsewhere in the Pacific Islands. Our kauri is the only temperate adapted species out of the twenty that exist. The rest grow in sub-tropical situations.

Is this specimen the largest tree in the Tuateawa area? There could well be others. One candidate is easily visible from Tuateawa. It is in what appears to be difficult country, in the hills to the north of the road on the way to Kennedy Bay. All you need to claim the record is some bush crashing ability and, of course, a ball of twine and a pair of scissors!

Tuateawa Plant Spot: TMESIPTERIS TANNENSIS, The fork "fern"

This is a fairly common plant in Tuateawa. It is usual to find it growing as an epiphyte on the trunks of tree ferns.It is nothing flash to look at, so most interest revolves around it's status as a living fossil. We consider the Tuatara to be very special. It had it's major flourishing 200 million years ago, but managed to survive when all of it's relatives became extinct 60 million years ago.

This plant goes back about 350 million years, long before Gondwanaland, to the time of the very first supercontinent, Pangea. Its ancestors were among the first plants to develop adaptations to living on the land. They had vascular tissue for moving water and sugars around, a big improvement on the mosses. They lacked true roots and their leaves were small and scale like. Plants continued to evolve with better adaptations, first the ferns and finally the flowering plants which make up current dominant vegetation.

Today most of Tmesipteris relatives are known only from their fossils. Only a few species exist in this far corner of the world, in Tasmania, some parts of Australia and islands like the New Hebrides and others in the Indian Ocean. They still exist because they found a new place to live. On the trunks of one of the plants that replaced them!