Reefcare Report: More Weeding!

Volunteers weeding non-native pig’s face

It was a mostly sunny morning this session where we welcomed two new volunteers to the Reefcare team!

While we worked, there were several ospreys flying around and were surrounded by lots of welcome swallows and magpies. We also found a Giant Green Slantface insect that was very hard to spot as it was completely camouflaged as a blade of grass.

Osprey flying at Long Reef

Giant green slantface camouflaged in grass

We mainly concentrated on continuing the weeding of non-native pigsface particularly targeting areas where it was crowding native species. We created a gap between 0.5-1m to allow them to grow without competition and recover.

Two volunteers weeding non-native pig’s face – Photo by Stefanie

At the top of the hill two volunteers worked on continuing to prevent asparagus fern spread. We removed some of the smaller crowns but mainly focused on removing the berries to prevent new plants from establishing in other areas of the site via birds. Misima said: “You will not believe the amount of berries that we collected and bagged.”

Another pair worked steadily across the slope, pulling out smaller asparagus ferns wherever they found them, as well as any other invasive weeds that had popped up.

Volunteers removing invasive weeds from grass slope – Photo by Stefanie

Text by Misima