Diary with Maureen

Nice day today. Sunday. So only did a few traps. The ones by the lakeside and D10. For some reason one trap has disappeared. Stolen? So I had not been to these traps for quite a while. Two of them, DOC250/1 and DOC250/2 had a hedgehog in it. Not sure why. They seem to have been there a while. Would be very early for hedgehogs to be around this time of middle winter.
 
I cleaned all the traps and re baited them with egg and peanut butter.
 
Then I did some research into Tui food. To my astonishment we do have all  the plants they like. The seven preferred foods of Tuis are: Kowhai, mountain flax, NZ flax, cabbage tree, fivefinger, ngaio, fuchsia. Now kowhai we have plenty, some mountain flax and quite a bit NZ flax, cabbage trees there are lots, fivefinger also, no ngaio (I have not seen it and it is not on my list of plants growing down there), fuchsia there are a few.
 
These plants cover every month of the year. Kowhai July to November. Fuchsia September to December, Sevenfinger from Januray to March. These are the nectar feeding plants. But then for the months in between we have Broadleaf, March to May. Fivefinger, May to July. Mikimiki, January to April. Wineberry, January to March. Korokio, January to May. The problem is that we have not enough of them. And the possums like them too and eat all the new shoots. But not much longer!
 
You can find all the plants on NZ Flora. www.nzflora.info
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