Site Reports

May 6th 2020 Monitoring

hamishp01

Andrew and Ian’s observations at TL on May 6th 2020, while carrying out social distancing!!

Weather. On the previous day very strong SSW wind with gusts up to 60.2 kph along with some light rain. This, along with high tides, has swept considerable debris around both lagoons.

The day was cool with air temperature varying from 12.4 oC at 900 to 12.7 oC by midday. The wind was light changing from 6.4 kph from WNW to 9.7 kph from WSW. No rainfall on this period.

What did we see?

Site 1

100% ccv, overcast, water beautifully clear.

Rich growth of sea grass (Ruppia sp) out from the margin, pieces of Elodea growing in small patches, interspersed with some patches of Charophyte.

 Strong growth of Azolla (Azolla filiculoides) (displayed in BLUE ) in the surface margins interspersed with Duckweed (Lemna minor) (displayed in RED)

Site 2

Very clear water, light westerly wind chopping up the surface, 99% CCV.

Big patches of Elodea along with sea grass,

Many swan and some cygnets and mallards

Canadian pond weed (Elodea canadensis)
A black swan (Cygnus atratus) family, mum, dad and two cygnets.

Site 3a

Clear water running quite slowly, again a thick deposit of fine sediment on the bottom, grazing beside the site, 98% ccv, westerly blowing up the lake.

Monkey musk

Many small snails

Socially responsible field worker

Site 4

Cloud clearing, water clear, light westerly wind, many swan.

Pieces of decayed kelp have been swept up to the outlet, strong winds and high tides!

Large pieces of Milfoil and seagrass floating on the surface, observed small pieces intestinal weed p resent with the other weeds.     

Good growth of seagrass and milfoil on the bottom.                            

Many small Amphipods

Numerous black swans and two cygnets

Milfoil (Myriophyllum sp) pieces ( stems with “repeating” leaves) mixed in with Seagrass (Ruppia sp) white root systems and grass blades. Debris floating on the water surface.
Milfoil, seagrass pieces along with and tubular ribbon of intestinal weed (Ulva intestinalis)

Water flowing over the top of the Weir and much Azolla present, culvert pipes fully immersed

Site 5

Cloud cover 85%, light westerly, lot of bull kelp debris and evidence of high tides and wind..our measuring stick has disappeared, clear water

Good even growth of Seagrass.

Good variety, red billed gulls, pied stilts, variable oyster catchers, mallards, B swans and paradise Shelducks.

Variable Oyster catcher (Haematopus unicolor)

Training

Training day 2018

tomahawkcitizenscience

It was great to see all the new faces on our Feb 26th training day! Our teams are now a mix of experienced citizen scientists and new students learning the ropes 🙂

It was a bit chilly out there, but after a brief introduction and having the scene set by Dr. Marc Schallenberg from the University of Otago, the students got stuck into their regular monitoring. And what a day to begin- with Cyanobacteria still in bloom at Site 1 (Domain Hall).. It was instantly obvious why we were all there and how important it is to get a handle on the health of Tomahawk Lagoon.

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Results at a glance (compared with previous sampling date)-

Site 1 Algal bloom still active.

Chlorophyll a very high in both lagoons

E. coli  increased and all Sites exceeded guidelines

Nitrogen greatly decreased from 2 Feb, but still exceed guideline values at S1-3

DRP (dissolved reactive phosphorus) lower at S4-5 and higher at S1-2. All exceed guideline values

Dissolved Oxygen S1 very low, S2 low – this makes it hard for critters and fish to survive

Check out our Results page for the most recent results and graphs