On Sunday 26^th February a number of Brooklyn Scouts and Leaders attended Zealandia’s Bioblitz Go! – a series of activities starting near the Karori Scout Den before moving onto Zealandia itself.

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We began with ‘The Fantastic Flora of Wrights Hill’ which was an opportunity to learn to use the Naturewatch NZ’s iNaturalist app.  Observations of plants, animals, microbes, lichens, mosses, fungi, or anything else that caught our attention were made (captured) with a phone or similar (photographed) and identified (online).  Observations gave feedback to the organisers of what youth were interested in, and the app. helped identify the object of their interest.  RIP reference books!?  See: http://naturewatch.org.nz

Then we moved onto Zealandia where Ruud ‘the Bugman’ Kleinpaste (a celebrity to the leaders anyway!) took us on an entertaining walk around the sanctuary looking at Tuatara, tree and cave weta’s, stick insects, the strange life cycle of Puriri moths (NZ’s largest moth), glowworms (in an old gold mining shaft) before trying to spot geckos in the undergrowth.

A display by various scientists gave youth insights into all manner of research topics.  One researcher used lay people/volunteers via the internet to identify pests caught by camera ‘traps’ laid around Wellington.  He had no chance of looking at all the 100,000 images caught by the camera’s!  Fascinating use of the net to an old leader like me!