A Ulva Island Tour with Sails Ashore, Stewart Island

As a farmers son, spring for me was lambing, a resurgence of plant growth and a new cycle of life. Well, I haven’t delivered a lamb for 50 odd years, but a couple of days ago across on Ulva with a couple from Auckland almost the first birds we saw was a Saddleback couple busy home building. And they were very vocal, with the pair calling every minute or so. Not just this pair either, as over the 4 hours we were there I heard around a dozen different pairs calling.

Robins Pairing up as well.

We saw several pairs of Robins, with the males showing great interest in the forest litter we disturbed, and generally there was a female close by.

First Orchids

The first of our orchids to bloom are Dancing Spider Orchids (Corybas acuminatus) .  The first of the embryonic blooms appeared two or three weeks ago, but we found some fully out.  As you can see by the photo these are not large, and their colouring makes it easy to miss seeing them in the wet mossy areas they prefer.

A 4 hour guided tour on Ulva Island Open Sanctuary is part of the package when staying with Iris & Peter at Sails Ashore on Stewart Island. Visiting Ulva Island (Part of Rakiura National Park) really is an Island must do

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Iris has a little sign in her garden  >> “To Live off Your Garden you almost need to Live in Your Garden”  and to be fair she is never happier than in amongst her plants.

And of course our guests love the fresh from garden produce that appears in snacks and nibbles.

Gardens are a year long project that don’t go to sleep just because it’s winter

July chores at Sails Ashore

A few days ago the weather forecast looked pretty good for several days, so we decided to start the vegetable garden preparation for spring planting. Current soil temperature is 6.4 deg C. Generally we’ll plant at 10 to 11 deg C

Iris winterised the garden in autumn with a good covering of pea straw. This has slowly broken down and now we double pass rotary hoe the straw and soil. Although the soil was quite damp it whizzed up well, and the few days sunny still days allowed quite good drying.

But of course we get lots of rain days, so after the rotary hoeing we cover the soil with a black polythene cover whenever rain is expected. This keeps the rain off the soil and of course black absorbs heat whenever the sun shines between showers.

When the forecast is good we roll the covers back. We don’t get much in the way of frosts, but what we do get help with slug and bug control, so we uncover when we expect a frost as well.

Slugs can be an issue here, as the few frosts we get don’t have much impact on survival. Iris does not use slug bate, and with poor climate control she has lots of flat boards around the garden for Slugs to hide under this during the day. A daily chore is clearing all the boards. Reducing the adult population also means far fewer eggs available in the spring.

Pruning the Grape Vine

A few days ago I was talking with Sue from Clearview Lodge  and she mentioned starting pruning her vineyard, a big job and will take her several days.  Our single vine needed pruning as well, but only a few minutes work. Our mild winter has started bud forming quite early, and Iris is hoping that the vines don’t bleed.

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One of the Island delicacies is Blue Cod. Actually this fish isn’t a cod, but rather a member of the Weaver Fish family. It gets its name from James Cook, whose crew caught it in great numbers in Dusky Sound in 1773. He referred to it as “Coal” fish, as it has a deep blue/black upper colouring…… hence coal. This has been bastardised into “Cod” Fish. Never the less it is excellent eating and very easily caught, as one of our guests discovered on a half  day Stewart Island fishing trip. And of course we enjoyed it for dinner. I whizzed up a couple of tablespoons of Colby cheese into a cup and a half of bread crumbs, rolled the fillets in flour, then beaten egg and then the cheesy crumbs and gently fried it in butter. That and a fresh salad …. superb !!

More Than Just Fishing

A fishing trip on Stewart Island has much more to offer than just fishing. Many of our seabirds will follow fish boats, as they know there is usually a free meal to be had from the discarded offal. So birders can combine a pelagic birding trip with a spot of fishing.. And most of the skippers will detour past a seal colony if asked..

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Many years ago while I was the Stewart Island Forest Ranger my boss in Invercargill encouraged me to shift Kiwi onto Ulva Island … there were none there. I think about 6 or 8 were moved there. Since then the population has increased to the mid 30’s, or so the DoC staff tell me. Stewart Island Kiwi are quite atypical, in that they are often seen feeding during the day, and now we are seeing them not infrequently. Always a great thrill for my guests of course, and I’m not immune to the excitement either.  Usually the birds just ignore us, and continue to go about their business. But yesterday while over on Ulva with two Australian ladies we manage to find one, which ended up between me and my guests on a track. It really got quite confused, not knowing which way to go, as we were only maybe 5 to 8 metres apart. I had only my phone, and although I attempted a photo, thought I had missed until I found this shot this morning.

Around Sails Ashore

And a couple of nights ago Iris heard a Kiwi pair both calling from quite close to Sails Ashore.

El Nino

Normally I carry my camera with me when I take folk on our Ulva Tour, but the forecast that day was for steady rain, and so I left it behind … the second time this season, and something I haven’t done for many a long day

The met people tell us this is going to be an “El Nino” year. And for us at the far south of New Zealand that means more Westerly quarter winds coupled with a wetter than normal summer. But we are after all temperate rain forest and also situated at around 46 deg 52 minutes South latitude …  well into the “Roaring 40’s” so called by the old wool clippers “running their Easterly down” for the passage from Australia and New Zealand around Cape Horn on the way back to Europe.

We’ve probably been a bit spoiled, as the past several years have been very settled, and little wind, and also quite dry. This year spring and early summer have been wet and windy, and consequently Iris’ vegetable garden is maybe 4 to 6 weeks later than usual.

On the upside, we don’t often get days of constant rain. It will rain steadily as the front goes over, and then showers and fine sunny periods…… which makes Stewart Islanders comments that we can have all 4 seasons in a day understandable… The cynical will add … “and a darn good start on the 5th season, as well “. We tell visitors to bring layers, a pair of good walking shoes, a shower proof coat and hat, and a sense of adventure.

Oystercatcher Nest Update

And good news….. the nest I mentioned in my last post has survived the spring tides. Mum is happily sitting on her eggs, and yelled at me when I went to see if she was OK.

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Part of the Sails Ashore “Stewart Island Experience” is a Guided Tour of Ulva Island Open Sanctuary. Your host Peter is also your guide, and the tour draws on my over 45 years of experience on Ulva Island, initially as Ranger in Charge, then as a very regular visitor and latterly as a natural history guide.

Oystercatchers

Yesterday I took a Wellington couple over to Ulva. Not a wonderful day, and we came back more than damp. It’s been some time since I had a really bad weather day guiding, as usually I can manage adjust tour times to work around the worst of it. But I have to say the tour went well, in spite of the wind and rain. Stewart Island is, after all, temperate rain forest.

But still a good afternoon, and among other things we found an Oystercatcher nest. But I have to say I doubt this nest will survive. These birds will generally nest just a metre of so beyond the spring tide mark, and lay just after the top of the big springs. Incubation is around 26/28 days, so hopefully they hatch before the next big tides. But this one has nested under a bank and worse, a couple of days before the top of the tides. The tide is undermining the beach, and less than a metre away. So not looking good. But I’ve known a pair to have 3 attempts before success, so maybe not so bad.

& Orchids

The orchid season is well underway, and in fact the Dancing Spider and Red Spider Orchids are all finished. But lots of Bamboo Orchid  (Peka a waka) Erina Mucronata are out.
Our New Zealand orchids are not particularly well known, apart from real plant enthusiasts, and showing them to New Zealanders is really special.

Pterostylus “Bluff”  and Green Bird Orchids are showing well around the village. And the Odd Leafed Orchids appeared about 2 weeks ago and are now well in leaf.

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The Leask Family.

Many of the bays around Stewart Island carry the names of old Islander families. And one of these is Leask Bay. Named for old Tom Leask, an Orkney Islander who arrived on the Island around 1863.

He was of course long gone when I arrived  107 years later. But I knew his grandson Stanford, and Stanford’s  wife Dolly well, and even better their daughter Joan and her husband Eddie.

Eddie & Joan Kirtlan

Joan & Eddie owned the old Lonnekers house and land at Lonnekers Bay, and with their 4 young daughters virtually adopted me when I arrived as a young ranger in 1969. Their assistance and guidance were invaluable, both within the community, and also with their great knowledge of the Island itself. If they couldn’t answer my queries they certainly knew who could.

Dawn, Helen, Ann & Lynne

Their 4 daughters were, from my advanced age of 21, quite little. I suppose Dawn, the oldest would have been around 12 . But little girls or not, they had huge fun making my life a misery, as they now had an “older brother” to torment.

Some years later I took Iris, my mother and some friends on a day trip up to climb Mt Anglem. And Helen volunteered to look after our daughter Anne, who was about 2. And although I guess Joan supervised I suspect we were lucky to get Anne back, as Helen would have happily kept her.

I look back on those days with great fondness

Both Stanford & Dolly and Joan & Eddies have since passed on, and the girls have left the Island as their lives took them elsewhere

But when they asked me if I would help them put up 2 picnic tables in memory of their parents and grandparents I was only too happy, and honoured to do so.

And today I finished them both, apart from some cultivation and re-seeding of grass, which will have to wait until soil temperatures get a little warmer.

So when you visit us at Sails Ashore on Stewart Island you’ll find these two picnic tables waiting.
Sit, and enjoy the bays they overlook, and perhaps think of those old Islanders, and what their life was like.
Something to explore with Iris & Peter perhaps.

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For many of our guests  Island life is a bit like the far side of the moon. After all many come from the large, busy cities, of Europe or North America. And so there is a lot of curiosity about the day to day life of an Islander. And a regular question is ” what do you do in the winter ?? ” as our visitor season is more or less October through to Easter, with January and February our peak visitor season.

We explain that we actually like winter, as it’s a complete change from our busy summer. Winter is a time for all those chores we didn’t get round to in the summer, but with the luxury of doing at our own pace. So we do admit to the odd sleep in, especially if the weather is a bit inclement, as it is today. … as I type this we are on the receiving end of a hail squall …. But our weather is not all storms, and we have lovely fine clear still days as well. As always our weather is quite changeable.

Iris’s Gardening.

Iris is a great believer in low maintenance gardening, as over the summer her time to garden is limited, and  she has 4 she looks after. So winter is when she is able to really enjoy her gardening, and for me it’s mulching up for compost all the garden waste she produces. With our own waste plus much of the lawn clippings the local contractor gets from the village open spaces (well fertilised with duck droppings… a bonus ) we produce around 5 cubic metres each year. Pruning and generally giving everything a good haircut is high priority, and in previous years each winter I would have a project aimed at making our vegetable garden more user friendly through terracing, thus reducing the slope…… all with an eye on making life easier as we get older and slower.

 For Me

Winter for me is when I have the time to work on our web site, and on a couple of others I am webmaster for. And every couple of years I rebuild the DVD we give our guests

We think keeping both “fresh”  is important.  And solving the problems that come with these projects certainly keeps my brain from atrophying completely.

Building things

Iris will tell you that there are worse carpenters in the world than me … but not many.
But the last few years I’ve managed to complete several projects quite satisfactorily. Last winter while Iris was in Europe I built several sets of drawers to utilise kitchen space that was otherwise inaccessible. And this year I am almost finished building a set of bed heads for our bed. Using Australian hardwood as frame, and local rimu which we had left over for the centre of the boards. They are just about finished and are in our sun room (no guests in the winter allows this) where I am doing the final oiling. Iris is happy enough with the result she wants another set for our daughters place.

Our Feathered Family

We both get lots of amusement watching the birds who come into our bird table for the sugar-water, fruit and bird seed Iris puts out. The interplay between tuis (very aggressive, they don’t even like each other, let alone the kaka) kaka, who are great fun and very social with each other, but who delight in tormenting the tuis. Bell birds who are quite shy with the others and will only come if no other birds are around, and an occasional wax eye. A few years ago we would have flocks of 20 or more wax eyes feeding, now seldom more than a couple. No idea why !!

We also have a resident family of over weight black birds. Iris feeds them all sorts of things, but they love cat food. Amazingly tame, they will generally only move if directly under my feet.

And Books …..

Or rather the modern version. Some years ago our children gave us an iPad, and encouraged us to buy ebooks, as we both enjoy reading. But I resisted as I felt that I needed the physical book in my hand. But one wet weekend, with absolutely nothing in the house I hadn’t read several time I gave in, and downloaded an author I liked. And never held a paper book for over 18 months. And Iris now has her Kindle, and like me finds winter a time to sit inside on those wet days and enjoy our reading. And not a tree sacrificed to do it.

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