Nga Manu Nature Reserve (Waikanae)

Yep, its not food.  But I was ser­i­ously impressed with this place in our back yard that I had no clue exis­ted.

Nga Manu is the largest remain­ing rem­nant of coastal low­land swamp forest on the Kapiti Coast, and was estab­lished as a reserve in 1974.  It has developed over the years to the well laid out facil­it­ies of today with the oppor­tun­ity to get up close and per­son­al with a vast array of NZ birds, rep­tiles, insects, trees, flora and fauna (and a tiny mud­fish).

I’d highly recom­mend the 11am guided bird feed­ing tour ($25 adult entry instead of $18, once per day only) to learn plenty, rub shoulders with a Kaka (lit­er­ally), hand feed chunks of cheese to Kea, and (usu­ally) see a plump tui eat creamed corn from the guide’s fin­ger (he was hav­ing a tan­trum today though so didn’t oblige).

I would nev­er in a mil­lion years have guessed all the dif­fer­ent diets – car­ni­vor­ous baby chick­ens for some, mince for oth­ers, insects, seeds, ber­ries, veget­ables (includ­ing the afore­men­tioned silky creamed corn), and most plated on spikes in a very appeal­ing fash­ion.  Fine din­ing a’la’avian.  Inter­est­ingly some of the smal­ler birds were actu­ally the more car­ni­vor­ous.  And many also got sug­ar syr­up to keep them happy and well con­di­tioned (clearly not dia­bet­ics).

The tuatara are usu­ally unmov­ing, but we struck a ver­it­able frenzy today with rap­idly blink­ing eyes and a bit of scur­ry­ing about.  And I’ve nev­er seen a swan do such things with its neck.  I was wait­ing for its uh-oh moment, but it man­aged to reas­semble itself into nor­mal form again.  An excel­lent party trick.

There’s a noc­turn­al house with a pair of kiwi to be seen up close while feed­ing, an eld­erly more­pork mat­riach, some clev­erly cam­ou­flaged owls and good inform­a­tion about pred­at­ors and their impacts.  With their day­time cre­ated dur­ing our night.

The reserve is breed­ing many of the spe­cies, and they’re noti­cing birds pop­ping over from Kapiti Island to vis­it, so they’re mak­ing a dif­fer­ence to the loc­al eco­logy and our her­it­age.

Nga Manu also dis­plays the Red Azolla Water Fern, which appar­ently bloomed about 50 mil­lion years ago in such quant­it­ies that it sucked enough CO2 from the atmo­sphere (and stored it as car­bon in the sea floor) to cool the earth and cre­ate the Ice­house peri­od which we are cur­rently in (one won­ders if more Red Azolla is needed?).

Most of the paths are very easy to nav­ig­ate (no prob­lem for strollers, wheel­chairs or oth­er walk­ing aids, oth­er than the duck gifts you’ll have to pick off
everything), and there’s really good inform­a­tion all the way around (espe­cially on the cute Wis­dom Worm boards).

Way to go Nga Manu.  Highly recom­men­ded.

281 Ngarara Road, Waik­an­ae