Published on 8 April 2019

Chasing lizards on Rangitoto and Motutapu islands

Suter's Skink in Motutapu Island, April 2019.

What was supposed to be a weekend counting shorebirds at Rangitoto and Motutapu islands turned into a little lizard survey by surprise.

Published on 13 March 2019

Auckland's west coast NNZD breeding summary

Three NNZD chicks, about two weeks old. Piha, January 2019.

The breeding season 2018-2019 is over and it looks like it hasn't been bad for the west coast. As far as I know a total of 10 chicks have successfully fledged but I expect the final count to be announced at the Auckland dotterel forum next April.

Published on 20 February 2019

Assessing the health of streams in Auckland

Streams health

One of my favorite papers last year was "Aquatic Ecological Assessment" taught by Dr. Kevin Simon. As part of this course I did an analysis using data collected by the Auckland Council from a set of freshwater streams in the Auckland region. The report makes use of several macroinvertebrate biotic indices: macroinvertebrate community index (MCI), semi-quantitative macroinvertebrate community index (SQMCI), taxa richness (TR) and the percentage of Ephemeroptera (mayfly), Plecoptera (stonefly) and Trichoptera (caddisfly) (%EPT). I used R to perform all the calculations and to generate all the graphs and plots included in the analysis.

Published on 12 November 2018

Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) on macroinvertebrate communities

NMDS

Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) is a technique often used to find similarities and similarities between communities composition. As a part of a broader analysis I wrote to assess the ecological integrity of a set of freshwater streams in the Auckland region, I used NMDS (using R) to compare macroinvertebrate communities composition among the studied streams.

Published on 28 September 2018

Finalists at the Love your Place Awards!

Finalists

Someone (no idea who!) nominated my mate Sean and I for a "Love your place" award. We were nominated under the category of "Kahikatea" for our work with the NZ dotterel at Piha. According to Ecomatters, the organisers of the event, the Kahikate award is given to an outstanding individual volunteer taking action on a local environmental issue.

Published on 26 September 2018

Improving our trapping with trail cams

Little blue penguin

During the past weeks, as little blue penguin (Eudiptula minor) and grey-faced petrel (Pterodroma macroptera) eggs started to hatch, we decided to step up our trapping game. I got my hands on a Moultrie a-20i trail camera and installed it to monitor a couple of traps in the heart of the grey-faced petrel breeding grounds here in Piha.