Environment – Feathering your nest

When it comes to our top priorities when choosing a home, where does nature fit in? We know that nature benefits us all, but how do you make your home a welcoming place for wildlife and make sure others do the same? 

I’m a firm believer in ‘plant it and they will come’, as a way to attract wildlife to your garden. Forget bird feeders, if not cleaned correctly sugar water feeders can do more harm than good, and I so often see people putting out seed and wondering why all they get is sparrows, doves, mynas – and rats! Native birds love to feast on nectar and insects, so plant flowering natives and watch them flock in! Don’t forget to add in some grasses and some wilder areas with logs for native skinks to hide amongst too. Many people aren’t aware that it’s the foreign, invasive plague skink that you tend to see basking in the sun. Our chunkier and much rarer, ornate, copper skinks are far shyer, so make sure you provide them with a space to call home. 

Another consideration when choosing a home, is your local park. Do you live close to one of these gorgeous green spaces? Do you have time to help care for it? Perhaps it’s the Ōrewa Estuary reserve that you love, the scenic Karaka Cove reserve in Red Beach, or the wetlands and sports ground at Stanmore Bay that make up your local patch. Supported by our staff, and in partnership with Auckland Council, over 140 Forest & Bird volunteers carry out weekly pest animal control to keep these precious local places safe from invasions of pest animals like rats and possums. We’re always looking for more people to help, and without you, the local community, this sort of work just wouldn’t happen. Can you imagine the problem several thousand more rats each year would cause!

Are you looking to rent a property to raise your family? You’ll be interested to know that some of our birds do something similar, but they rent a homestay for their chicks and don’t pay the bill! Every year in early summer, the pīpīwharauroa, shining cuckoo, lays its eggs in the nest of the riroriro, grey warbler. The riroriro unknowingly incubates the pīpīwharauroa eggs and raises the chicks as its own, despite them being so much bigger than its own offspring.  

At Forest & Bird you will be aware that we are campaigning against the government’s Fast-track Approvals bill, and you too might be shocked at the list of proposed developments that may result from this process. It’s not that we are against housing developments, we all need places to live, but we must consider the impact on wildlife when choosing where this happens, and enable communities and environmental experts to input into decision making, so as to keep this country we call home safe, clean and green. 

Find out more about how you can take action here: www.forestandbird.org.nz/tell-environment-committee-pause-fast-track