Jon Sullivan
@joncounts@mastodon.nz  ·  activity timestamp 4 days ago

Perhaps the biggest highlight of today's run up through the Ōtautahi Port Hills was just how many more korimako (NZ bellbirds) there are about now compared with when I started doing this survey.

I just checked and on my July 2017 run, I made 54 korimako observations. Today, on the same route, I made 249(!). That's just the mapped points. Some of today's observations were of about 50 birds singing at once.

Check out the two maps to see the big difference.

Huge credit here goes to the City Council Port Hills rangers and the volunteers of the Summit Road Society. Both groups have been helping the native forest to regenerate and have been controlling the pest mammals that eat the birds. It's working!

#UrbanEcology #EcologicalMonitoring #birds #nz#Christchurch #map#ChristchurchCityCouncil#SummitRoadSociety

A map of my 12 km run route from the edge of the housing in the Cashmere suburb of Christchurch up into the grasslands and forests of the Port Hills (climbing 374 metres). There is a satellite image underlay that shows the land cover. Yellow dots on the map indicate each observation I made of one or more korimako (NZ bellbirds). This map is from my July 2025 run and has 249 yellow points on the map. The natural native forest to the south of the map (the highest part of the run) is now thick with yellow points.
A map of my 12 km run route from the edge of the housing in the Cashmere suburb of Christchurch up into the grasslands and forests of the Port Hills (climbing 374 metres). There is a satellite image underlay that shows the land cover. Yellow dots on the map indicate each observation I made of one or more korimako (NZ bellbirds). This map is from my July 2025 run and has 249 yellow points on the map. The natural native forest to the south of the map (the highest part of the run) is now thick with yellow points.
A map of my 12 km run route from the edge of the housing in the Cashmere suburb of Christchurch up into the grasslands and forests of the Port Hills (climbing 374 metres). There is a satellite image underlay that shows the land cover. Yellow dots on the map indicate each observation I made of one or more korimako (NZ bellbirds). This map is from my July 2025 run and has 249 yellow points on the map. The natural native forest to the south of the map (the highest part of the run) is now thick with yellow points.
A map of my 12 km run route from the edge of the housing in the Cashmere suburb of Christchurch up into the grasslands and forests of the Port Hills (climbing 374 metres). There is a satellite image underlay that shows the land cover. Yellow dots on the map indicate each observation I made of one or more korimako (NZ bellbirds). This map is from my July 2017 run and has 54 yellow points on the map.
A map of my 12 km run route from the edge of the housing in the Cashmere suburb of Christchurch up into the grasslands and forests of the Port Hills (climbing 374 metres). There is a satellite image underlay that shows the land cover. Yellow dots on the map indicate each observation I made of one or more korimako (NZ bellbirds). This map is from my July 2017 run and has 54 yellow points on the map.
A map of my 12 km run route from the edge of the housing in the Cashmere suburb of Christchurch up into the grasslands and forests of the Port Hills (climbing 374 metres). There is a satellite image underlay that shows the land cover. Yellow dots on the map indicate each observation I made of one or more korimako (NZ bellbirds). This map is from my July 2017 run and has 54 yellow points on the map.