KCC WildThings 166 Winter 2025

Wild Takurua/Winter 2025 | ISSUE 166

Things

Inside:

> Spotting the

rock wrens > Draw a robust grasshopper!

UP IN THE AIR For Forest & Bird’s young nature lovers

But, right now, one of the biggest problems facing them is climate change, and we need to act. They are too cool to lose, and it’s too warm to wait.

The theme of this issue is UP IN THE AIR and it features many species that live, fly or jump up high. Most of the species are endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand – they’re not found anywhere else in the world (some migrate away during the year but they come back to breed). All these amazing species are in danger because of climate change.

Toroa | Antipodean wandering albatross I am one of the largest albatrosses in the world. My wingspan can be 3 metres long. So if I balanced on one wing, I could easily dunk a basketball into the hoop with my other wing!

Karen Baird

EDITOR: Geraldine Canham-Harvey ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER: Rob Di Leva, Dileva Design PRINTING: Webstar, Auckland • ISSN 2230-2565 COVER:

dankeny

2 Wild Things

Pōpoto | Māui dolphin I am the smallest dolphin – small enough to fit in your bathtub. But I’m playful so I would make quite a splash!

My dorsal (back) fin is a semi-circle like a Mickey Mouse ear; other dolphin species have a triangular fin similar to a shark’s.

Gregory “Slobirdr” Smith

To join KCC and receive Wild Things, or to receive our free E-news, go to www.kcc.org.nz.

Wild Things is published by Forest & Bird, Phone 0800 200 064 Email office@forestandbird.org.nz PO Box 631, Wellington 6140.

Copyright: All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the written permission of Forest & Bird.

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Aotearoa New Zealand has amazing wildlife and wild places, many of which you can’t find anywhere else on this planet.

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Hura te ao | southern black-eyed gecko I was only discovered in 2018 – don’t lose me now!

I live high up only in two mountain ranges in North Otago. My name means “to reveal” (because I was hiding!) or “the break of dawn”, because of my glowing lip colour.

Ailsa McGilvray Howard Ngutu pare | wrybill I am a curious and cool bird because of my curved bill. It is unusual for birds but it makes sense to me – I use it to pry under rocks and find food in stony riverbeds. My bill always points to my right.

Carey Knox Southern Scales Rātā moehau | Bartlett’s rātā I grow from a seed sitting up high on a tall native tree. Most rātā have bright red flowers, but mine are white. I also have white bark that’s like tissue-paper! I become an epiphyte (see pages 26–27) before dangling my roots to the ground and becoming a tree!

nzbirbz

Tara iti | fairy tern I nest on the beach and my eggs and chicks are the same colour as the sand. When I give an alarm, my chicks stand still so they seem to disappear (like playing Freeze!). I am New Zealand’s rarest bird – there are only about 40 of us left. I’m feisty and too cool to lose!

Dayne Laird

3

New Zealand’s feathery mountaineers

By Libby Christophers

U

p above the clouds in Aotearoa’s Southern Alps lives a very special and mysterious manu | bird. It has short wings, and although it can fly in the air, it prefers to hop and flick close to the ground. This manu is the pīwauwau | rock wren (also known as tuke or mātuitui).

Over millions of years, rock wrens have developed an amazing ability to survive in places many animals can't. The weather changes very quickly up in the Alps. It can be extremely cold, with heavy snowfall and high winds. It’s a harsh place to live.

Libby was once a KCCer. At university she studied zoology, marine science and geography.

Pīwauwau nest in well-camouflaged holes on the ground, between rocks or small bushes. This clever little bird uses moss, feathers and whatever else it can find to insulate its nest and to keep it toasty warm (just like humans insulate their houses).

While it’s freezing outside, the nest can be up to 30 degrees inside!

←

FACT: The lining of a pīwauwau’s nest can be as thick as 8 centimetres – the length of this box! And that’s much thicker than

→

most puffer jackets!

Pīwauwau | Rock wren.

Samuel Aramis

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Rock wrens are so well-suited to the mountaintops that they never leave.

They are Aotearoa’s only true alpine bird.

They never venture down into the forest, unlike their cousin, the titipounamu | rifleman.

SOUTHERN ALPS

4 Wild Things

Titipounamu | rifleman.

Melissa Boardman

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Lynn Freeman Its olive, gold and brown feathers help the pīwauwau hide.

The bird has a high-pitched short whistle. It sounds a bit like a squeaky tap!

To find a pīwauwau you need to look very carefully, because they are no bigger than a teaspoon from your kitchen!

Rock wrens are endemic to New Zealand, meaning that they’re found nowhere else but here. Another reason they are too cool to lose!

Pīwauwau use their large, strong feet to grip onto boulders and slippery stony slopes, just like a tramper’s boots.

You can get ideas on how to help the rock wren and other animals in this issue of Wild Things.

As the climate warms, rock wrens could move higher up the mountains to stay cool, but there’s less room, fewer things to eat and the weather is harsher.

5

Do you know what “resilient” means?

Resilience is like a metal spring.

If you pull it out, or try to bend it, it will bounce back and keep its shape.

Being resilient means species not only survive but thrive (live well).

It is hard to keep resilient when change is happening really fast – like it is now.

You can help our amazing wildlife keep resilient. No one is too small to help!

Even though it may not seem like it sometimes, every little action can help. Together, each action can make a big difference!

And if lots of people make small changes together, then we are more likely to reach our shared goals for a thriving and healthy environment.

As the pepeha | proverb says:

“Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari taku toa he toa takatini.”

“My success is not mine alone, but it is the strength of many.”

Macmahon’s rock daisy (also called Mt Stokes daisy), Marlborough Sounds, South Island. Craig McKenzie

What do you know will help our wildlife live well?

6 Wild Things

There are ideas in this magazine too – look for these symbols.

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

New Zealand’s animals and plants can live in some tough places.

They need to be “resilient”.

© WildIssue Things Issue May 2025. Published by&Forest © Wild Things 166, May166, 2025.

Published

by Forest Bird. & Bird.

Robust Grasshoppers

by Lily Duval

What looks like a rock, jumps like a frog and smells like an old shoe?

The robust grasshopper!

Robust grasshoppers are one of our coolest native critters. They’re built like tanks with big shoulders and tough-looking grey or rusty brown exoskeletons (their body covering). And they’re pretty big for a grasshopper. Females can be up to 4 centimetres long – that’s about the size of a walnut!

When these grasshoppers aren’t making impressive leaps through the air, they’re masters of disguise. In the dry, rocky riverbeds of Te Manahuna | the Mackenzie Basin, their grey bodies and orange and yellow markings blend in perfectly with the lichen-covered stones.

Other grasshoppers use vibrations or sight to communicate but this is tricky for camouflaged critters that live on stoney ground.

Scientists think that the robust grasshopper’s strong smell probably helps them communicate with each other. Being stinky is also a great way to put other creatures off eating you!

Te Manahuna is a place of extremes. It’s super cold in the winter and super hot in the summer. But these grasshoppers have adapted to survive. They need warm days to feed and chilly winters to help their eggs develop.

Warren Chinn Sadly, despite their tough armour, the robust grasshopper is one of our most endangered insects.

Predators like hedgehogs and stoats sniff out the smelly grasshoppers. On top of that, climate change could make it too warm for their eggs to grow properly.

But there’s still hope! If we act now to fight climate change, we can help these amazing grasshoppers hop on for many more years to come!

Marlborough Sounds

Te Manahuna | the Mackenzie Basin

Learn how to draw the robust grasshopper – look over the page!

Paul Stewart

7

How to draw a

robust grasshopper!

by Lily Duval

1

Using a pencil, lightly draw a rough sketch of the basic shapes in the grasshopper's body.

2

Add a rough outline of the grasshopper's eyes and antennae.

3

Add a rough outline of the legs (you don't need to draw all six because two legs are hiding behind the body).

Have a go at drawing the robust grasshopper!

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Can you draw a picture of me sitting on a rock? And maybe a friend on another one?

7

Draw some rocks and plants for your grasshopper – you could even draw another grasshopper!

8 Wild Things

YOU WILL NEED: • An HB or light pencil • An eraser • A black ink pen • Colour pencils

4

Go over your outline with a nice pen/pencil. You don't have to include all the lines. Erase the light pencil from the rough outline.

5

Colour your grasshopper in, making it darker at the edges and lighter in the middle near the top of its body.

6

Add some extra colour and detail over the top – patches of orange and white.

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

9

How will climate change New Zealand’s wildlife?

Climate change will result in long-term changes in temperatures and weather patterns around the world. Some of the causes of climate change are natural, and they have happened over thousands of years. But since the 1800s, humans have become a key reason for climate change happening.

Tākoketai | black petrel

Climate change has lots of impacts for our wildlife and for us. Some of these changes are shown in the orange boxes below.

The weather gets too hot, too dry, too cold, too wet

I nest up high on tall hills and cliffs on small islands that can be exposed to the rain and wind.

Mark Fraser

Storms happen more often

Robust grasshopper I live in riverbeds in a part of New Zealand that can dry out or Warren Chinn be very snowy.

Droughts happen more often

The seas, lakes and rivers warm up

Whio | blue duck I live on rivers. I need them to be clean, swift, and have just the right amount of water.

Craig McKenzie

10 Wild Things

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

The sea-level rises further and further up the coastline onto land

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

ge impact Draw a line between the species and a climate issue that will impact them.

One has been done for you.

Some of the impacts below are connected to each other; for instance, ground that goes hard in a drought then can’t soak up water when there’s a storm and so floods are more likely.

Can you think of other impacts that affect one another?

Can you think of other animals, plants, or fungi in Aotearoa that might be affected by climate change?

Predators survive better when its warm and move to warmer places.

Food might be available in the wrong seasons or it might disappear completely.

Animals and plants have to cope with stronger wind, heavier snow, more flooding on land and in rivers, and bigger waves at the coast.

Toroa | Antipodean wandering albatross I fly over the seas to find fish to eat. If the fish move away, I'll have to fly even longer distances.

Victor Mikhailovich Alexeyev It’s harder to find water to drink.

Tara iti | fairy tern

Some places where wildlife live become more at risk of wildfire, and rivers and lakes run dry.

I nest in the sand, just above the high tide mark.

Sea and wind currents change.

Lakes and rivers grow pest weeds and toxic (poisonous) algae.

Animals and plants struggle to find good places to live and food to eat.

Beaches are no longer good places to live or nest.

Saltwater gets into groundwater and soil near the coast.

Charlotte

Rātā moehau | Bartlett's rātā I grow high up in trees in parts of Northland that get very dry and hot. Possums like to eat my young leaves.

Peter de Lange

11

Super seabird sch Petrels and their cousins the albatrosses are amazing New Zealand seabirds. Their bills are very special as they have two long nostrils called tubenoses (tube + nose).

Not all tubenoses are the same. Can you spot the differences?

Toroa | albatross William Harland

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Most other seabirds have nostrils called nares, that look more like holes.

12 Wild Things

Tāiko | petrel Shaun Lee

Apart from when they breed or nest these beautiful birds spend most of their lives at sea.

Nares Wild_wind

chnozzes!

Look over the page to make a tāiko mask!

The smallest petrel is the tākoketai | black petrel (also called tāiko or the Parkinson’s petrel).

They forage (look for food) across the oceans, going as far as the South Pacific islands or across to South America.

Scott Brooks at www.thepetrelstation.nz

Tubenoses give us a great sense of smell!

A nest can be hard to find under the trees when you’re flying home from sea, but the black petrel uses its superpowered nose to smell its nest from a long way away!

Having tubenoses doesn’t stop petrels diving down into the sea to catch fish and squid. Some petrels can dive deeper than most human divers can safely go!

When flying, these birds must drink seawater, which is too salty for their bodies. The tubenoses help drain the salt out. Maybe it’s like having a runny nose!

Tīkapa Moana | the Hauraki Gulf is a taonga | treasure for Aotearoa New Zealand.

It’s a marine and coastal habitat for a variety of animals, including the tara iti | fairy tern; te whai rahi | manta ray; pōpoto | dolphins; tohorā | whales; and many fish species. The Gulf has plants and wildlife found nowhere else in the world.

13

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

The tākoketai | black petrel now only nests on the tallest parts of two islands in Tīkapa Moana | Hauraki Gulf (also called Te Moananui-ā-Toi). These are Te Hauturu-oToi | Little Barrier Island and Aotea | Great Barrier Island.

“The Masked Petrel” A

A

C

• • • •

Cardboard Thin stretchy elastic PVA or magic glue A paper straw (or recycle a plastic one)

CUT OUT

B CUT OUT

INSTRUCTIONS: • Cut out the outline of the face and the bill, and the eye holes.

• Glue onto soft cardboard • Make a small hole where the two dots are. Attach elastic to fit round your head.

• Fold the two flaps marked A down behind the beak, then stick flaps A to where it is marked B, following the edge of the mask.

• Cut two short pieces of straw the same size, to make the tubenose. Glue the straws on to the bill where it is marked C.

14 Wild Things

If you would rather make an albatross mask, see WT issue 147 May 2020 here:

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

B

C

You will need:

Panga | Puzzles Word hunt Migratory birds

● TERN ● GANNET ● DOTTEREL ● PETREL ● ALBATROSS ● SHEARWATER

● CURLEW ● SANDPIPER ● GODWIT ● SKUA ● PLOVER ● STINT

Page

31

●●●●●●●●●● ●●●●●●●●●● ●●●●●●●●●● ●●●●●●●●●● ●●●●●●●●●● ●●●●●●●●●● ●●●●●●●●●● ●●●●●●●●●● ●●●●●●●●●● ●●●●●●●●●● Maze

Tick them off as you go

The fairy tern needs to make sure it nests above the high tide so that storm waves can’t reach it. Can you help it find a good spot?

Can you find... …the robust grasshopper?

It’s very well camouflaged!

Warren Chinn

15

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

New Zealand is known as the seabird capital of the world. More than a third of the species that breed here are found nowhere else (they are endemic). Can you find the ones in the list below?

The red names belong to birds from other parts of the world that migrate long distances to come to New Zealand for warmer weather.

Puzzle answers

Catching sight of the rays

Te whai rahi | the oceanic manta ray is a spectacular marine animal! It lives in tropical and warmer parts of the world’s oceans, but also swims down to Aotearoa New Zealand to feed and breed. Manta rays can be seen out in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, but they can also be elusive (hard to find)!

What makes manta rays too cool to lose?

Manta rays have cephalic (head) fins that look like horns when they roll them up.

They unroll the fins to scoop tiny sea animals into their mouths as they swim.

Manta rays are the largest of all rays – the distance from wingtip to wingtip can be up to 7 metres (that’s about half the length of a normal bus!).

Dr Mark Erdman

Baby manta rays look like burritos when they are born because their long wings are rolled around their heads.

16 Wild Things

Manta rays have the largest brain of any fish and are probably very intelligent.

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

If you see a manta ray while out at sea or on the coast, you can report it here:

Every manta ray has its own individual pattern on its belly, just like your fingerprints are unique to you.

They are diamond shaped, with their fins adapted to be like wings. They can beat their wings up or down at the same time, or in opposite directions!

Remora fish like to use manta rays to get a free ride across the ocean

Manta rays get into the air!

They propel themselves out of the ocean (called breaching) and fall either headfirst or tail first or they flip and sink back in. Scientists don’t know exactly why they do this.

Dr Mark Erdman

They are gentle giants that can weigh about 1000 kilograms (that’s about the same as a small car!). © Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Lydia Green

Manta Watch New Zealand (www.mantawatch.org.nz) researches and advocates for manta rays and other ocean animals. Its Chief Executive, Lydia Green, says, “Manta rays are beautiful and majestic animals. While they sometimes play hide and seek, they also will interact with humans, and check us out. The more we learn about manta rays, the more we find they are even cooler than we thought!”

See a manta breach on Manta Watch NZ’s YouTube channel here:

Thank you very much to Manta Watch NZ for their help in preparing this article.

17

Patai | Challenge

See manta rays in the Hauraki Gulf in the Endangered Species Aotearoa series here

Manta rays are graceful swimmers who seem to fly through the water – and occasionally leap out of it!

For this pātai | challenge, you need to make a model of a manta ray that moves like its swimming or flying.

Your model might be a kite, or some kind of dart or flier.

Or you might have other ideas – there’s a whole ar-ray of things you could do!

If you can use recycled materials, even better! And it probably won't be as big as a real manta ray – that might not fit in your house!

Dr Mark Erdmann

Send your photos or videos of your flying manta to kccinbox@ forestandbird.org.nz, or share them with us on Facebook by 20 July 2025. There will be prizes!

The Hauraki Gulf Marine Park was established in 2000. Making it a park has helped protect the Gulf’s wildlife and improve their habitat.

18 Wild Things

Auckland

In 2024, Forest & Bird had a special awareness day on the Gulf's beaches called “Love the Gulf”. Do you live nearby and were you able to go? Ka rawe, if you did!

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Unfortunately the Hauraki Gulf is being damaged by things such as climate change, and this will affect animals such as manta rays and black petrels. This special place needs to be protected so it can recover and stay a healthy environment.

Manu for Nature!

During summer 2024–25 KCC asked for kids and families to do manu to raise awareness of the need to protect our freshwater rivers and lakes. Here are a few of the photos we received of kids “up in the air”! © Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Your family will find lots more photos and some awesome videos on the KCC Facebook and Instagram pages!

T. Hains

K. Graeme P. Robinson

In the

Mailbox

Cordelia’s family has been looking after monarch butterflies.

J. Long

Tino pai, Evelyn!

Evelyn made a cool picture with KCC stickers. She said the green bit is the forest and the yellow bit is the sand.

The Hector’s dolphin is leaping out of the blue water.

John spotted this weird fungus when walking around a redwood forest in Dunedin!

A. Garvey

F. Muckle

19

KCC

ADVENTURES River testing

by Caitlin Symes (11 years) KCC Hastings – Havelock North went to the Ngāruroro River in October last year. Tom Kay, the freshwater advocate from Forest & Bird national office, came and told us about looking after rivers and fish. This was special because he came all the way up from Wellington! He talked about flood prevention measures and why we need to make room for rivers. We got to play and experiment with the river water so we could predict if the river was clean or not! We did some testing with a big tube, including the water temperature. The river wasn’t as clean as it looked; you could only see about 10 cm through the murky water and the river had lots of algae in the water and rocks.

Tom Kay.

Chantal Pagel

Later on we looked for fish and macro-invertebrates, which are tiny living creatures. We found a few plus some spiders. We caught some tiny fish and even some shrimp!

Emma Buttle

We hung out by the river and we always had an adult watching us. The water was cold but we didn’t swim.

We brought our gumboots and water shoes but never needed to get wet. The night before there was a storm in the hills so all the rain from the Ranges came down the river. While we were there the river level went up about 10 cm in about two hours.

Emma Buttle

Ka rawe

KCC HastingsHavelock North!

20 Wild Things

Caitlin by the water.

Emma Buttle

We had a great time and would like to thank Tom Kay for joining us for this special trip.

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

We were looking and searching for rubbish and found a few bags full – so remember not to drop your rubbish and to put it in the right bin!

KCC Manawatū members headed out to a wetland near Palmerston North with Horizons Regional Council. The Council monitors a population of brown mudfish (hauhau/waikaka) to check it is still healthy.

KCC member Izzy got to be the scribe and write down all the important information about each fish. Anna Regtien

Catching the mudfish.

Anna Regtien

KCC Manawatū found three brown mudfish. We quickly realised how difficult it can be to accurately measure their length, as they squirm around so much.

KCC members Kaia, James, Izzy and Eliza with Katie from Horizons Regional Council.

Anna Regtien

This fish is too cool to lose!

Brown mudfish mostly eat terrestrial insects (that is, those living on land) that drop from nearby trees, rather than insects that live in the water. All the more reason to have trees around our wetlands.

We learnt how important it is to look after our wetlands so this stunning native fish can flourish.

Anna Regtien Brown mudfish can survive living in damp mud for months if their wetland starts to dry out, by “breathing” through their skin!

Tino pai

KCC Manawatu!

Where is that adventure?

Had a KCC adventure?

Let us know at kcc@ forestandbird.org.nz.

21

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Manawatū mudfish

My Carbon Footprint Simple actions can lead to major changes for the future of our planet. Your “carbon footprint” is the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) you release into the atmosphere during your daily activities. Increased CO₂ in the atmosphere worsens climate change. Whether it is how you get to school, the heating/cooling system in your home, or even the food you choose to eat throughout the day, your choices affect life around you.

FINISH

48

You are watering the garden too much. +2

37

47

Do you recycle?

Yes: -3 No: +3

38

Aims of this game: • To help you get a better understanding of how choices affect our carbon footprint.

• To inspire you to make better choices going forward!

36

35

You ran the dishwasher when it’s not full! +5

26

Uh-oh, you left the lights on!

23

Do you shower or bathe more?

Bath: +3 Shower: -2

13

14

You turn off the computer when you have finished with it. +3

12

11

Do you usually open your curtains during the day and close them at night?

Yes: -2 No: +2

1

2

You will need: A dice, paper, and a pencil.

How to play

How do you get to school?

Walk: -2 Bike/scooter: -2 Bus/train -1 Carpool: +1 Car: +3

25

Put your counter on START. Take turns to roll the dice and move forward that many spaces. Keep going until you get to FINISH.

24

If you land on a blue space, have another player read the question to you. Answer honestly, and tally up or down the right amount. If you land on a green leaf, adjust your score based on that choice too. © Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Landed on a green arrow? Good job! Follow the arrow and go up to your new position!

Find yourself on a pink arrow? Bad luck! Follow the arrow and go down to your new position!

You have cleaned your air conditioner. -5

If you are the first to finish, subtract five carbon footprints! Make sure to wait for everyone else to finish.

At the end, compare your carbon footprint. The person with the lowest number is the winner!

22 Wild Things

START

This game was modified from a game designed by Kiri, who was a KCC member and 12 years old at the time.

For

2pla–ye5rs 45

44

43

You cycled to your friend’s house. -2

42

You used more petrol to zoom on ahead.

32

31

You picked up rubbish that you saw someone else drop. -3

30

39

How do you usually prepare your lunch?

Plastic bags: +3 Reusable kitchenware: -3

40

34

You saw rubbish and picked it up!

33

27

You purchased plastic water bottles. +3

28

Do you usually buy food at farmers markets or supermarkets?

Farmers market: -3 Supermarket: +3

29

22

21

You put on a jersey and turned off the heater, good job!

20

15

16

How long are your showers?

1–4 minutes: -3 5–10 minutes: +3

10

9

You use recyclable batteries, good job!

-5

3

Take a run around the house/ building you are in. How many unnecessary lights are on?

Everyone +1 for each light.

4

You compost your food scraps. -4

41

Do you usually use a dryer or hang your clothes on a washing line?

Dryer: +3 Hanging line: -3

19

On average, how many times a day does your family use their car?

0–2: -2 3–5:+2

17

18

You used plastic bags instead of reusable ones!

8

7

Do you usually use both sides of paper?

Yes: -1 No: +1

5

Oh no, you threw away your glass bottles! +3

You see rubbish and pick it up!

-3

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

46

Send in your game ideas for a chance to feature in Wild Things.

6 23

Predicting whether the weather will change The weather in New Zealand is very changeable – we can have four seasons in one day, not just in a year!

You might hear someone say then that climate change isn’t unusual or anything to worry about, because the weather is always changing – sometimes it’s hot, other times it’s cold, sometimes there’s a drought, or there might be flooding.

But weather and climate are different (though they are connected to each other).

Weather includes sunshine, rain, wind and temperature.

It can change quickly – over minutes, hours, or in days.

The climate is what the weather is like in a specific place over a long period of time, such as 10s or 100s of years.

A weather forecast helps you know to pack a raincoat for school.

A climate forecast can suggest if you will keep needing to buy gumboots all your life!

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Over time, people have learnt how to predict certain types of weather (though they could not be totally sure, just like we can’t even with today's technology!). They did this by observing natural changes over days, months and seasons (called signs). Often there was not just one sign but many that the weather was about to change.

These signs might only apply to their environment where they lived or travelled. But learning this was important; it helped people know if the weather might be good or bad for farming, fishing, harvesting, or sailing.

One type of sign people watch is what animals are doing. Some animals can sense how and when the weather might change, not just by sight, hearing or touch, but using senses humans don’t have.

For example, when stormy weather is very close, bees will stay inside their hives, birds will find trees to shelter in, and spiders find places to hide.

Nursery Web Spider.

Plants also show changes – pine cones open up in dry weather but close again when the weather becomes rainy or humid (muggy).

What do you notice when the weather changes?

24 Wild Things

Pratheepps

Ben Weatherly

Can you match the animal and its behaviour to the photo on the left?

Pūkeko

A If you catch one, and you find their bellies are full of stones, then bad weather is coming (Ngāti Koata).

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Here are some examples of tohu that come from observations of animals around Aotearoa. Tohu are (or refer to) the signs used by Māori, and these can vary between iwi and region.

Tom

Kākā

B

They head for higher ground when they sense a storm and flooding is coming (Ngāti Wai).

C

They act up, twisting and squawking above the forest when a storm is coming (Ngāti Pare).

Kirk Serpes

Rāwaru | blue cod

Matt Ruglys

Thank you very much to NIWA for their help with information on weather predictions and tohu Māori.

Here you can find NIWA's poster with more traditional Māori weather and climate forecasting knowledge".

Also suggest your teacher checks out their website here.

Dan Iggers

25

Hanging out in the trees

© illustration by Desmond Bovey

E

piphytes are plants that grow and perch up on the branches of trees.

Many different kinds of epiphytes can grow together, sometimes in big clumps.

Epiphytes are like gardens in the sky!

They create a habitat (place to live) for insects, birds, reptiles and bats, who find food, water and shelter there. Other plants also grow in them.

Each epiphyte community is unique. One epiphyte might have quite different animals to another epiphyte on the same tree!

Epiphytes can look like overgrown plant baskets or huge nests because they hang down and fan out, at different heights.

26 Wild Things

Most epiphytes don’t harm the tree but help it – they drop leaves, compost and rainwater onto the soil and tree roots below.

Epiphytes need to live in mature (adult) trees with strong branches, like tōtara, pūriri and pōhutukawa.

But possums like me can chomp through a huge amount of these trees’ leaves. We target the same trees night after night, eating the fresh yummy new leaves. We can’t help ourselves.

Dianne and Gordon Purdie

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Peka-a-waka (a native epiphytic orchid).

Michael Berardozzi Trees capture an amazing amount of carbon (they are “carbon sinks”), and this helps fight climate change. Trees can help us if we help them to grow and thrive. They are a nature-based solution.

Can you name the bird in the painting?

Without leaves, these trees can’t survive. The epiphytes might lose their home and protection from the weather.

Browsing pest animals such as deer, goats, pigs and wallabies eat and trample on seedlings (young trees) growing on the forest floor. If no new trees grow to replace the old trees, the forest will disappear. Epiphytes will too!

Many epiphytes need wind to scatter their seeds or spores, so living up high in the breeze helps them!

It’s also warmer and wetter up high in the canopy.

But if climate change makes the weather too hot or dry, the epiphytes will struggle and may no longer provide habitats for other plants and animals.

How can you help?

Use Your Hands – give a trap, or get trapping in your community, farm or backyard if possums lurk there. Find out if there are forest planting activities near where you live and take part.

Use Your Voice – tell people what epiphytes are and how they need to be protected from possums and browsing pests.

27

Polly Pekapeka

VISITS TAURANGA O

met lots of nice people and saw some cool nature. Polly was able to meet their friends who were visiting from Japan.

Polly had a great time on the Kulim Park playground, hanging in the giant, old pōhutukawa trees and looking for fish and crabs at

the beach.

At Marshalls Animal Farm, Polly enjoyed seeing lots of farm animals! She even had a ride on a pony!!

Kai and Sou can’t wait to see a real pekapeka in the forest one day!

N. Jones

A

Book review

By Ivy Flynn-Garrett Age 12

Saving Wananga: The true story of a kea rescue

by Kris Herbert, illustrated by Dïne. Published by Potton & Burton.

28 Wild Things

D. Garrett

re you interested in conservation and native birds, or do you want to learn more about them? Then this book is for you! It is the true story of a kea rescue, and how we can work together to protect our native species.

The book is about a cheeky kea named Wānanga, who has a big personality and is bolder than most kea. He even wanders into the caravan of a kea researcher, Laura! But a few weeks later, someone calls Laura to say that “Wānanga was spotted looking unsteady and wandering out onto

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

ne of Polly Pekapeka’s visits last year was to Kai and Sou in Tauranga.

They have seen a real bat in an old silver mine shaft in Japan!

This year, they wanted Polly to come to their house and take her out for a few adventures. Polly

A Little Bird Told Me...

M

ia painted a watercolour of New Zealand native birds and wrote a letter about our native birds, to send to His Majesty King Charles as she knew he’s passionate about the environment. Approximately six weeks later a letter arrived from Buckingham Palace thanking her for the artwork. She was beyond chuffed to receive a response!

Z. Ikin

the road”... and so the story begins!

I liked this book because I learnt a lot about keas.

I also loved the characters, especially Wānanga, who is a real personality. The characters worked together to help Wānanga and this made me think about how we can achieve more when we come together.

The story made me happy and sad at the same time!

It is also beautifully illustrated with hand-drawn pictures throughout the book. I think this would be a good book for kids aged 7 years and older.

Would you like to win a copy of this book?

If you do, email us at KCC and tell us how you protect our native species that are too cool to lose!

Send your email to: kccinbox@forestandbird.org.nz by 30 June 2025.

Make sure you include your name!

Thank you to Potton & Burton for providing this book to us. © Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

29

What I do in nature Brothers Jude-Tui and Arthur sent in stories about their holidays. Here are some excerpts (parts) of what they wrote.

Jude-Tui wrote about the Okitu Bush Reserve track, near Gisborne. “When we got to the top, I saw an amazing view from the lookout. The breeze was really nice on my face. I could see how far we had actually run. We found an interesting tree with a hole in it. The Bush Reserve track made me tired but it was fun.

Winifred Frances Lysnar created the Reserve and donated the land. Before the land was farmed but now it is an astonishing bush track. Winifred and groups planted 3,500 trees and plants. There’s heaps of birds too.”

M. Smyle

M. Smyle

30 Wild Things

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Arthur told us about visiting Bushy Park, near Whanganui, with family and friends.

“I saw the toutouwai (New Zealand robin). These little birds are very curious, and a sign said it was reintroduced to Bushy Park in 2005. I was sort of excited because it is my bird (my family gives us a bird name each). Mine is the toutouwai (my second name is Robin).

It is important to look after Bushy Park especially because of the possums, stoats and rats in New Zealand. We already have some traps out at our place, but we might try to stop more possums by putting out some more traps.

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

KIWI CHICK CHECK Emma (age 11) and her family visited friends in Wellington who work on a kiwi project: “We were lucky enough to tag along to check on two chicks who were about two months old. The kiwi chicks had transmitters on their legs so Jeff could use his telemetry gear to work out where they were.

Ash, the trainee Conservation Dog, then used her nose to precisely indicate to Pete which bush the chick was located in. My Dad helped Jeff and Pete

C. Gray catch the chick to do some health checks on the chick: body condition, bill length and weight.

Then they changed the transmitter to a bigger model as the chick is getting bigger. The last job was to microchip the kiwi. This is so they can identify the bird once it is an adult and it won’t have a transmitter.

It was pretty cool seeing the kiwi chick, even though we had to climb up and down some pretty steep hills with gorse and other prickly plants!”

Emma Gray

Puzzle answers

Maze

Can you find...

Word hunt

31

All of these animals are impacted by climate change. Why do you think they’re too cool to lose? Let us know and you might feature in the next issue of Wild Things!

Mike Bodie | DOC

Katipō spider

Arnim Littek

Australasian bittern | Matuku-hūrepo

Powelliphanta snail

© Wild Things Issue 166, May 2025. Published by Forest & Bird.

Kākāpō

greghandley1

Garrett Craig

Polly Pekapeka will be returning soon – keep an eye out for your May KCC newsletter!

CONTACT US 32 Wild Things

kcc@forestandbird.org.nz Wild Things PO Box 631 Wellington 6140 www.kcc.org.nz

NEXT TIME

On the ground