Capturing the health of a piece of bush, and figuring out what predator pests are around, often comes down to the state of its smallest inhabitants
On a cold, dark Saturday night two self-named "nature nuts" are deep in native bush near Whakatāne getting very, very close to some of our tiniest creatures.
So miniscule are the bugs that they look like specks of dirt.
But they are enough to light up the eyes of Russell Ingram-Seal and Wayne O'Keefe whose close-up camera captures even the hairs on their legs.
On this trip Russell's mission is to find the rare icing sugar wolf spider, so called because of the white hairs all over it. If we locate it.
We're on the Brettkelly family farm which is a mix of native bush, exotic forest and flat pasture.
Tonight, we want to get an idea of the state of the health of our 35-hectares of native bush in the hope that one day, like many landowners around the country, we can bring kiwi here and be part of Whakatāne's claim as the kiwi capital of the world.
Russell calls himself a nut for invertebrates and kiwi. He started the night walks with Whakatāne Kiwi Trust, and is also involved in a new book about beetles. He's armed with a plastic beating stick and tray to catch the bugs; a high-end torch which lights up the bugs like a disco ball; a jar with a magnifying glass lid; and a pencil with a brush at the other end.
Wayne's hefty high-end camera can capture the tiniest hairs on the tiniest creatures. Nature photography is his passion and is part of his work with the Bay Conservation Alliance, a charitable trust that supports community conservation groups.
He leads the ground breaking Project Keep, the Kōkako Ecosystem Expansion Programme that aims to connect two isolated groups of the bird in the Bay of Plenty.
"Not in my lifetime, but ultimately all the kōkako populations in the Bay of Plenty are connected," he says.
Tonight, it is the flora that impresses Wayne.
"I've been blown away by the mosses, and the little warts and the filmy ferns. It's special for that," he says.
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