When we look at the tūī up close, we can see how intricate they are! The feet show some hints of their ancient evolutionary past. And yet these birds are making themselves home in our back yards.

Guess the creature!

🚌Six seats left! Looking for local businesses to join us for Aroha Kaikorai Business Plus. 💯This is your chance to do something more than just business, network, join the community and become part of the solution. #ArohaKaikoraiValley #AKV #AKVB+ #ArohaNetwork

Our bird of the month, the tūī, is endemic to New Zealand, meaning it's found nowhere else in the world. Have you got any photos of them in Kaikorai | Kaikarae Valley?

Want to help our native birds, like this kererū? We're looking for volunteers to help our community look after their predator traps. We have over 500 traps across Kaikorai Valley, and a few of those traps are with hosts who are unable to reset and rebait their traps. We need a friendly person who is physically fit to give them a visit and check their traps. Here are more details of the role: https://volunteersouth.org.nz/roles/2681/community-trapper If you're interested, the next step is to fill in the form on the Volunteer South page or contact us on connect@akv.nz

Many thanks to the Otago Regional Council for providing us with a 3D printed map of the Kaikorai catchment! We're having great fun pouring over it and learning about the patch we're looking after. This will come in handy when we're planning traplines, rubbish cleanups, water quality events and much more ☺️

Since July last year, Aroha Kaikorai Valley has been collecting air quality data and rolling out monitors thanks to the support of local residents and businesses. We currently have 9 active monitors, and the live data can be viewed on the AirGradient Map and AKV website. For the comparison, we looked at monitors that had data from both the previous summer and this winter, including @foleys_nz Dunedin, @turbowebnz, and Barr Street. The results show a clear seasonal difference in PM2.5 levels, with winter averaging 7.6 µg/m³ compared to 2.9 µg/m³ in summer, a 162% increase. This highlights how much air quality can worsen during the colder months, mainly due to home heating from wood and coal burning. Older fires can produce far more pollution than modern low-emission burners. Fine particles like PM2.5 and gases such as nitrogen dioxide can cause health issues, including asthma, hospitalisations, and restricted activity days. Kaikorai Valley is particularly vulnerable because geography and likely temperature inversions can trap pollutants close to the ground. As we gather more data, we’ll be able to make more comparisons across other monitors and see how our measurements compare to Otago Regional Council's monitor on Clyde Street. Please reach out if you would like to support the project — we'd love to deploy more monitors and expand coverage across the city. Check the live data here: https://map.airgradient.com and https://akv.nz/info/air

🌿 Big aroha to everyone who came out for our Tilburn & Frasers Gully clean-up! ☀️ Perfect day + awesome people = one mad collection of tyres, toys, household junk & more. After the mahi we celebrated with kai, cuppas, and chats back at AKV HQ. 💚 That’s how community rolls! 🙌 #ArohaKaikoraiValley #CommunityCleanUp #KaikoraiCatchment #LoveYourStream