The Hunua Ranges are just to the south-east of Auckland, a tangle of knife-edge ridges and deep gullies covered in native bush. A few weeks back (more like a month ago now!) I headed out there with Robert Vennell. Robert is doing his Master’s on pig-disturbance, using motion capture cameras to monitor their activity. Our task for the day was to retrieve the memory cards from some of the cameras to check for activity, and do transects around the camera sites to look for visible sign of disturbance. Pigs are a huge pest, rooting up the ground and munching on native plants. Another concern in the Auckland region is the spread of Kauri dieback – a pathogen that is really impacting some of our most treasured native trees. 
We had a beautiful day for it, sunny but cool under the dense canopy. For me, it was nice to be out of the city and somewhere wild again. We drove out the night before and arrived in the dark, so waking up to a purple dawn and a view over the hills was wonderful. I was perhaps overzealous in the amount of camera gear I carried – but there was the potential to see Kokako, my favourite forest birds. Unfortunately we didn’t see any, but there was still plenty to photograph as we made our way from camera to camera.
The pig-action on the cameras was pretty quiet. There were a few rats – but for the most part, other pests in the Hunuas such as rodents, possums, cats, and stoats are controlled by poison. There is an area of intensive pest management as part of the Kokako Recovery Project, which is helping to boost the population and maintain genetic diversity by translocating birds from elsewhere in the country. The pest control has also had benefits for some of our other rare fauna -such as Hochstetter’s Frog, one of New Zealand’s unique species.
Doing the vegetation transects took us up hills and down gullies, through a thick understory. I would take the measuring tape out to mark ten metre plots, and Robert would follow, noting down what was in the plot, and teaching me a bit about plants as we went along. He’s got a great blog about New Zealand flora that you should definitely spend some time reading! 
There were lots of little highlights to spending the day out in the bush. We found plenty of interesting fungi, and the jewel-like cases of what I think is a chafer beetle? (entomologists, help me out here!). There were also big highlights, like descending (gracefully, of course, not falling or sliding down at all) into gullies and crossing streams with beautiful waterfalls.
And when we got up high enough, the views were pretty sweet too! It was a great day, and though I didn’t particularly want to leave at the end of it, I did have to return to the city for seminars the next day. Cheers Robert for taking me out there (and feeding me enough chocolate to get me back home again!). 
