Haere Mai! Welcome to Quail Island!

Our very first day here in New Zealand we hiked up to the top of a hill just outside of the city of Christchurch and looked out upon Quail Island. We were told that towards the middle of the course we'd be going there, and oh how time flies! Today we finally got to visit the island for a restoration project with The Quail Island Conservation Trust, under the guidance of Ian McLennan.

Our ferry from Lyttelton to Quail Island

Some quick facts about Quail Island:
1. Quail Island is uninhabited. In 1875, it was used as a leper camp/hospital and then after that, as a base for Antarctic exploration.
2. The island was declared a recreation reserve in 1975.
3. The Quail Island Conservation Trust is a charitable trust, so they receive no government funding and everything is planted by volunteers.
4. They've been planting trees for 20 years!

Our role today was to help Ian and some frequent volunteers plant native silver tussocks into pots where they would grow and then in about a years time, be planted in the ground on the island (probably by families on a "Family Planting Day")!

Getting a planting lesson

We received a general introduction/health and safety talk from Ian when we first arrived. He told us about the trappings they do on the island to remove the non-native mammal predators and excitedly told us about the three bird species they have nesting on the island: bellbirds, shining cuckoo and the wood pigeon. We learned that just to be extra safe, we would be wearing masks due to the very slim possibility of contracting legionnaires from potting soil (as you can see in the picture). We set up an assembly line of filling up pots, planting tussocks, trimming and placing together in the sun and in no time we had planted 311 tussocks!

Our group

Once finished with our lunch, we set out with Colin (our now friend from the Landcare Research) to walk the 4.5k loop of the island. We reviewed some of our native flora knowledge, finding flax, manuka and kanuka, lemon wood, daisies etc. We saw the first patch the Trust ever planted, which was right down the hill from a patch that was being prepped for a planting in the spring! We also got to use Colin's hand lens (a small magnifying glass) to look at different colored lichens.

Corinne using the hand lens to look at an orange colored lichen (that to me looked like a venus fly trap)

We also searched for geckos and skinks under rocks, where Cole and Corinne were successful at finding one of each!

After a trip to the wind-protected beach and the ferry ride back, we ended the day with one of Dr. Hostetler's favorites -- Coffee Culture.

-Caroline