Field trip to Tavora Reserve, North Otago

Tavora is a coastal reserve near Palmerston managed by the Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust. The Trust has done extensive riparian planting and has also transformed the previously marram covered dunes into a showcase of pingao with many associated threatened species including shore spurge, Cooks scurvy grass and sand tussock. The reserve also has natural populations of the uncommon Aciphylla subflabellata, Lepidium tenuicaule, and Tupeia antarctica mistletoe hemi-parasitic on ribbonwood trees. Well do an easy walking circuit of the reserve that takes in all the highlights.