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Pinehaven Stream Improvements and Here

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Pinehaven Stream Improvements and Here Pinehaven Stream Improvements Assessment of Ecological Effects: Avifauna – for the Pinehaven Stream September 2017 And here Final Prepared by: Alison Davis, Aristos Consultants Ltd Reviewed by: Paul Blaschke Date: September 2017, Table of Contents 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1 2.0 BACKGROUND 1 3.0 METHODS 3 3.1 FIELD SURVEY 3 3.2 LITERATURE SEARCH & OTHER INFORMATION SOURCES 3 3.3 DATA ANALYSIS 4 4.1 FIELD SURVEY 5 4.2 BIRD RECORDS FROM THE PINEHAVEN CATCHMENT 7 4.2.1 WI TAKO RESERVE 7 4.2.2 PINEHAVEN CATCHMENT 8 4.3 BIRD SPECIES DIVERSITY AND RELATIVE ABUNDANCE 10 4.4 EFFECTS OF PROPOSED STRUCTURAL WORKS ON BIRD ECOLOGY 11 4.4.1 48 WHITEMANS RD TO WILLOW PARK (SHEET 1) 11 4.4.2 4 SUNBRAE DRIVE TO 40 BLUE MOUNTAIN RD (SHEET 2 AND PART SHEET 3) 13 4.4.3 1 PINEHAVEN RD TO 12 BIRCH GROVE (PART SHEET 3 AND SHEET 4) 14 4.4.4 12 BIRCH GROVE TO PINEHAVEN RESERVE (SHEET 5) 15 4.4.5 JOCELYN CRESCENT (SHEET 6) AND WYNDHAM AND CHICHESTER (SHEET 7) 16 4.0 SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS 18 5.0 REFERENCES 19 6.0 APPENDICES 20 APPENDIX 1: BIRDS RECORDED IN THE WI TAKO RESERVE, PINEHAVEN HILLS 20 APPENDIX 2: UPPER HUTT DISTRICT PLAN - CHAPTER 27A: URBAN TREE GROUPS AND INDIGENOUS VEGETATION REMOVAL 21 Figures Figure 1: Proposed works in the Pinehaven Stream to reduce flood risk. Prepared by Jacobs (Draft, September 2017). The sheets refer to detailed drawings showing the location and nature of the works, and are presented in the resource consent application. 2 Tables Table 1: Bird species encountered at five-minute bird count stations in the lower Pinehaven catchment. 5 Table 2:Bird species encountered at five-minute bird count stations at Wi Tako reserve in the lower Pinehaven catchment. Two counts were made at the station on the 16 March 2015. 8 Table 3: Bird species recorded in the Upper Hutt area that are likely to inhabit or visit the Pinehaven catchment. 8 Table 4: Bird species diversity at count stations along the Pinehaven Stream within the project area. 10 Table 5: Conspicuousness or relative abundance of bird species at count stations along the Pinehaven Stream within the project area. 11 Table 6: Larger trees within the Pinehaven Stream project area – proposed to be removed or retained 16 1.0 Introduction A Floodplain Management Plan (FMP) for the Pinehaven catchment was finalised in 2016 by Greater Wellington Regional Council (2016). The FMP establishes goals and objectives to manage flood issues in the catchment, and proposes a series of methods including their implementation to reduce the risk of flooding damaging assets and temporarily affecting access to properties. There was significant feedback from the community living in the catchment in the development of the plan. Responsibility for implementing the plan includes both Greater Wellington Regional Council and Upper Hutt City Council (UHCC). Methods to manage flooding include a combination of structural (physical works), non- structural (planning controls, community awareness and preparedness) and river management (day-to-day maintenance of the watercourses). The structural methods focus on the stream channel where physical works will be undertaken to increase the capacity of the channel to cope with water flows, reduce blockages to water flow and manage flows on the floodplain. The implementation of structural works requires a resource consent application that includes an assessment of environmental effects for the proposed methods and mitigation opportunities. This report assess the potential effects of structural works on birdlife habitat and populations within the project area of the Pinehaven Stream, and proposes opportunities for mitigating unavoidable adverse effects. 2.0 Background 2.1 Pinehaven catchment and bird habitat The approximately 450 ha Pinehaven catchment is located in the eastern hills of Upper Hutt, and the Pinehaven Stream flows from the hills in the upper catchment, through the residential community of Pinehaven and then to Silverstream before reaching Hulls Creek and finally the Hutt River. The land cover varies in the catchment; production pine forest grows in the hills of the upper catchment, the Wi Tako Scenic Reserve with its regionally significant lowland podocarp and beech forest and native bird communities is in the mid-catchment, and residential areas with a mosaic of remnant native forest and specimen trees, exotic trees, exotic and native shrubberies, weedy vegetation, gardens and lawns is in the lower catchment. There are several urban parks in the lower catchment with the Pinehaven Stream flowing through Willow Park and Pinehaven Reserve. There is a small urban centre and commercial area at the bottom of the catchment. The riparian margins of the Stream provides a mosaic of habitat types for birdlife that is predominantly tree or shrub covered. This forms a continuously linked ‘wooded habitat’ from the top of the catchment down to the Hutt River in the valley floor. Page 1 of 25 2.2. Proposed stream works The design of the proposed works in the project area is described in the resource consent application, including where removal of existing vegetation and post-works landscape planting is proposed. Works will be undertaken within construction and operational designations. Figure 1 shows the location and general nature of the works in the Pinehaven stream. (TO BE UPDATED AS MORE INFORMATION ON ENGINEERED WORKS IS MADE AVAILABLE) Figure 1: Proposed works in the Pinehaven Stream to reduce flood risk. Prepared by Jacobs (Draft, September 2017). The sheets refer to detailed drawings showing the location and nature of the works, and are presented in the resource consent application. Page 2 of 25 3.0 Methods 3.1 Field survey A field survey to record the characteristics of bird habitat and bird populations was carried out in 2015 when the investigation for proposed solutions to mitigating flood risk began. The project area was revisited on two occasions in mid-2017 when preparation of the resource consent application commenced. No significant change in habitat including within the watercourse of the Pinehaven Stream or its riparian margins were observed, nor any larger-scale land use changes in the catchment. The information on bird habitat and bird populations gathered in 2015 is regarded as still being relevant to the current situation. Eight bird count stations were undertaken in areas where construction works were thought to be likely as suggested in the Flood Management Plan (2016), and as close to mature trees, as possible, with a preference given to stands of native trees (Figure 2). The location of these stations are within the area of proposed stream works shown in Figure 1 (with the exception of the Wi Tako station). Mature trees are expected to contain the best habitat for native birds. The coordinates of the count sites were recorded to enable repeatable counts should monitoring be required in the future. Bird counts at the stations were carried out using the standard five-minute bird count method (after Hartley and Greene, 2012). Two bird counts were carried out at each count station, within 10-15 minutes of each other. All counts were carried out on one day, the 16 March 2015. At each station five minutes was spent recording the number of individuals of all bird species seen or heard from the count station. Care was taken not to record the same bird twice during a count. 3.2 Literature search & other information sources A search was made for published records of birds present in the Pinehaven catchment, or any bird survey and monitoring data. Greater Wellington Regional Council have published reports on their bird monitoring of Upper Hutt reserves with mature bush areas that include Wi Tako Reserve. The Atlas of Bird Distribution in New Zealand published by the Ornithological Society in 2007 provides bird distribution data from 1999-2004, and is supplemented by more recent data from the websites eBird (http://ebird.org/) and Nature Watch (http://naturewatch.org.nz/ ). Both tui and kereru were commonly noted as being present in the Pinehaven catchment including around the sites surveyed in this investigation. Resident observations including information supplied in a submission to the draft Pinehaven FMP (2014) provides further information on birds in the catchment. Page 3 of 25 3.3 Data analysis Data from the bird count stations was entered into an excel spreadsheet using a standard five-minute bird count data template. From this the total number of bird species and mean number of individuals detected at each count station was calculated. The mean number of individual birds detected shows each bird species’ conspicuousness, and provides a measure of species relative abundance. The data from the counts within the stream reaches was compared to the count undertaken at Wi Tako reserve as well as from the results of the Greater Wellington monitoring programme at this reserve. With its mature native forest habitat and pest control programme in place, Wi Tako Reserve provides a reference site for what to expect for a healthy native bird population in the district. This Reserve has some of the highest recorded native bird diversity in Upper Hutt City (see Section 4.1). Data from the field survey is not robust enough for statistical analysis. Observations were only undertaken for one day, and in case seasonal variations in bird conspicuousness would be expected. Should a programme be set up to monitor trends in bird populations in habitats along the Pinehaven Stream then a baseline has been established through this survey. As bird conspicuousness varies depending on a number of variable including time of the year, time of the day, weather conditions and the surveyor/observer it is important that any monitoring programme is designed to standardize these variables or sample the range of variation.
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