The story of the last three weeks has been weeds. I recently had a minor windfall and splashed out on some field guides. The biggest eye-opener has been An Illustrated Guide to Common Weeds of New Zealand. I think most keen naturalists have a special affection for native flora and fauna, and I am no exception. But for me the biggest thrill I get is just knowing what's around, what I'm seeing every day. And the truth is that what I see is more often exotic than not. It is weeds. A lot of them have terrific names: Scarlet Pimpernel, Catchfly, Bittersweet, Nightshade, Prickly Lettuce, Willowherb, Forget-me-not, Monkeyflower. Smacks Creek has a lot of recently torn up ground where exotics have been torn out it looks like. The bare space is filling lushly with weeds, getting leafier and prettier as summer starts to heat and hum.

Every time I have headed down to Smacks Creek I have been surprised. I was surprised to see a rabbit one day (too slow to snap it), a pukeko the next, then a pair of shovellers, then a cat. All things that you don't see every visit and might not see in fifty visits. It's making this project very exciting. I have recorded all or almost all of the large woody plants, a couple of ferns (maybe the only two species there), the Carex and have made a start on the weeds. The weeds have great potential to boost the total taxa number. There is a lot of disturbed ground where it looks like exotic trees (Silver Birches, willow) have been removed. So there is a lot of good space for weeds. The wood is also rotting, and there a lots of invertebrates underneath to observe and record when I have more time. I also need to spend an hour with my video camera which has a good zoom on it to get the wee passerines that are all about. I think I can get to about seventy observations by this time next week. And from there I aim to get to the century before the years end.