Our winter newsletter is packed full of good stories from our recent series of Floating Classrooms, our first bioblitz, our weeding and planting programmes, and more.

But first, some much less welcome news from our pest surveillance work...

After celebrating a landmark 12 months without a pest incursion in our autumn newsletter, we have unfortunately since had a rapid run of 4 rodent incursions since April.

While it was inevitable that incursions would occur again, it is likely that at least some of these pests came to the islands from human activities rather than swimming from the mainland.

We are asking everyone who is visiting the islands or taking their boats nearby to please redouble your efforts to ensure that you are not unknowingly transporting pests.

For boaties, now is a great time to make sure you've got everything in place to keep your vessel pest-free:

- deploy chew cards on your boat and check these regularly for any bite marks

- keep a keen eye out for any other signs of pest activity such as droppings, scent, or chewing

- store all food and waste in sealed, rodent-proof containers

Check our website for more information about how you can keep everything ship-shape when it comes to pests.

For everyone visiting the islands, please make sure you are checking and repacking all of your gear before heading out there, all bags are closed, and food is kept in sealed containers.

We've recently wrapped up our Floating Classroom programme for 2025-26 — a season that saw around 300 bright-eyed students from Te Tai Tokerau, across 10 schools, step into 14 days of island learning on Moturua.

This year's classrooms saw groups split off for bush walks to identify native plants and birds, while others rolled up their sleeves to build rat traps, decode animal tracks, and discover just how competitive beach and bush bingo can get.

And as if our native forest bird species weren't exciting enough, some lucky classes were treated to some spectacular bonus encounters — orca cruising past their boat, seals sunbathing, a close-up daytime wētāpunga encounter, kororā tracks on the beach, and even our shy nocturnal pāteke casually paddling by to say kia ora.

Students followed up their island days by presenting back some exceptional work inspired by their experience, reinforcing and extending their learning back at school.

Huge thanks to the Joyce Fisher Charitable Trust whose continued backing ensures every school and student can dive into this fantastic learning adventure at no cost.

An extremely special daytime wētāpunga sighting for students from Kawakawa Primary!

One Floating Classroom student very happy with the trap he'd built

To celebrate National Volunteer Week in June, we invited some of the volunteers who have given the most time to the project over the past year to join us for a little celebration of their mahi.

Thanks to the generosity of Russell Mini Tours, we were able to treat them to a fascinating tour of Kororāreka, sharing many insights into our local history, before sharing some good kai and kōrero.

We also want to extend our thanks to everyone who volunteers with the project, in every capacity, whether that is weeding, planting, fundraising, sitting on our committee, advocating for the kaupapa, or anything else. Everything we have achieved together for the islands is built on the generosity with which people in our community have given their time.

As part of National Volunteer Week 2026, we decided to introduce a Volunteer of the Year award, to recognise and highlight an outstanding individual contribution. 

The inaugural award was presented to Kevin Philpott. Kevin lives aboard his boat and spends a lot of time on and around the islands, where he has done a huge amount of independent work for our weedbusting programme. Thank you Kevin for your drive and determination to contribute!

We sat down for a chat with Kevin last year about his experience of volunteering with the Project:

On Sunday 31st May, we conducted our first mini bioblitz, on Akeake peninsula on Urupukapuka.

Simply put, a bioblitz is a communal effort to record as many species within a designated location and time period as possible.

The purpose is to engage and enable members of the community to more closely observe and connect with the natural world around them, spark curiosity, and enjoy the great outdoors, while also generating useful data for science and conservation.

Using iNaturalist to record and identify our finds, our team of 16 recorded 282 observations, including 62 unique species of plants, animals, and fungi, and had a great time along the way.

We've written up a short blogpost about what we did, what we found, and how you can undertake your own bioblitz here.

In this newsletter we are celebrating another of our awesome business members, Bay of Islands Lodge. A small, family-owned and operated lodge in Paihia, Bay of Islands Lodge provides comfortable, welcoming, and affordable accommodation for visitors to the area.

Owners Travis and Paige are committed to caring for the local community and environment, and became a business member of Project Island Song in 2024.

On Sunday 7th June, 47 fantastic volunteers, including an enthusiastic crew of rangatahi voyaging aboard the R. Tucker Thompson, worked together to plant more than 500 native trees at Urupukapuka Bay, helping to restore the diversity of seed sources on the islands and speed up the regeneration of the ngahere.

Big thanks to everyone who came out to help, Tom Lindesay for leading our planting programme, and to Trees That Count for funding our trees again this year!

We're stoked to have achieved 3rd place in Northland Regional Council's moth plant competition!

In total, groups around Te Tai Tokerau collected and removed an incredible 37,704 pods, each containing many hundreds of seeds.

Congratulations to the winners for their amazing effort, pulling 11,168 moth plant vines almost singlehandedly!

The submissions process on the proposed Conservation Amendment Bill has been extended until midday on Monday 13th July.

The Bill would alter the functions of the Department of Conservation, making enabling economic development a core part of its purpose, as well as making it easier to sell public conservation land.

Make sure you take the opportunity to make your voice heard about these significant changes. Forest and Bird have put together some useful summaries here, or go straight to making a submission here.

Huge thanks to OutFit North and their amazing members, for raising an incredible $2000 for Project Island Song in April!

Active April is their campaign to encourage their members to get outside, be active, and reset some good habits that might have slipped to improve their wellbeing.

Around 60 of their members participated, with one doing 50 pull-ups every day for the month, a team joining together to run a combined 200km, and one member doing 2000 push ups across April.

Thank you to all these awesome people, and to Outfit North for choosing to support our mahi!