Amy joined me on this stormy morning with lightning flashing across the estuary to GPS and fix metal stakes on the Shell Chenier bank at Shoal Bay and this may tell us that rats swim out to these islands that are nesting sites for dotterel, pied stilt and variable oystercatcher and roosting sites for several At risk species of wading bird including wrybill and godwit..
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| Storm clouds, lightning and a rainbow as we installed the chew cards on metal rods |
The chew cards are impregnated with a bait lure to attract rodents and its going to be interesting to re-visit after there nights to see what has nibbled the cards.
Amy was recently in the Norfolk Islands completing her Masters degree so was the ideal person to help me particularly in the afternoon when we tackled the steep and slippery bush clad cliff edge to fix cards to trees..
Then Yesterday (Saturday) in torrential rain I met up with Emma, Nerida, Stephen and Lotte to lay two chew cards lines in Upper Shoal Bay along the Patuone walkway.
Then in the afternoon Dan helped me set up the three chew card lines in Ngataringa Park.
I was very grateful of all the support for this project particularly on such an atrocious weather weekend.
Next week after three nights we will retrieve the cards for analysis by the RIMU team and then we will have some base line data.