LOVE BITTERN PROJECT

Come and see the last of the hūrepo, proclaims the proclaimer.

It’s 4am as I arrive, the moon still hangs in the cloudy sky. I am led to believe that the ecosystem at Te Waihora, Lake Ellesmere in Canterbury is about to collapse…taking with it a population of Bittern that has been here since records began.

Yes, Te Waihora is fragile. It is a shallow brackish coastal lake, Canterbury’s largest. The lake supports a diverse range of wildlife, people and communities…. who live life on the edge.

However it is the edges, the spaces in between, that are the places where magic happens..when night meets day, where fresh water meets salt water, where shallows meet the deep.

It was this magic, I bore witness to.

Te Waihora.
I have come to bear witness, 
   to what the proclaimer proclaims,
      are the last of the hūrepo.

I stand on her shores,
    feel her embrace
            as night turns to day, 
                   I hear her voice.

The wind whispers in the reeds,
     "hope is still here"

The waves dance to tomorrows, 
      tomorrow

The half moon holds vigil,
     in a cloudy sky

As light gathers, the hūrepo calls,
     Te Waihora is alive!

-Love Bittern Project

There is no doubt, in her shallow depths and murky water, danger looms near.

The blazing Canterbury sky gives no reprieve and the water in the rivers and lakes are warm…too warm. The absence of the dragonfly tells us this, they need cool water to persist.

But will other species rise? The brine shrimp and royal spoonbill are having a ball. The pied stilts yap happily in the shallows.

The water levels are low from evaporation and extraction to fuel economic growth. That combined with increased sedimentation from the same, creates a downward spiral of coincidence and cause as the region, like many others grapple with the complexity of setting it all right.

Algal bloom starts to colour the water a deep brown blood red in the man-made channels where macrophytes are dredged to hasten the water. By contrast the meandering rivers of old, run clean and clear.

The lake is the last stop, the sinkhole as it were, for everything good and bad to homogenise. The resulting mix doesnt bode well for a species like Bittern, a visual hunter, who need to see its prey to feed, and to be able to access small eels and fish in wadeable water.

It is here I met the team dedicated to looking after the hūrepo…and the story unfolds. (tbc)