The Bream Bay College team headed up to Pukekauri on Thursday last week for their turn to check the traps. It was another stunning blue sky day and the temperature was much milder than the last time we were up there! Jacque from Enviroschools came up with us to see what we’ve been getting up to.

We started with the western side of the trap line and weren’t having much luck until we got to the last trap on that side. There was a very large rat caught in one of the last traps along the line. The boys got it out and identified it as a Ship rat.

We then headed along the other side of the trap line, methodically checking and rebaiting and setting the traps. The boys were getting pretty good at it by the end of the line, even rebaiting and setting the DOC200s by themselves, with Steve and Xzavier watching on.

At the end of the trap line Steve and Xavier had set up a possum trap but unfortunately there was nothing in it this time. Xavier demonstrated how it works and the boys rebaited it and smeared the rest of the peanut butter bait up the tree leading to the trap so hopefully it will be more tempting for a possum. The boys had a go at setting and unsetting the possum trap and then it was time to head back.

On the way back we stopped for our 5 minute bird count. We heard approximately 10 different birds.

Six or seven riroriro (grey warblers), a tauhou (silvereye), a piwakawaka (fantail) and two rakiraki (ducks).

Steve commented that as it warms up we should hear more birds and that he had definitely noticed an increase in bird song since we’d started this project which is really exciting.