Originally Corsers Stream was a rural utility drain. In the 1990’s it was converted into a more natural, open waterway, connecting Travis Wetland to the Avon River.

The reserve is located within one of Christchurch’s red zones. This means it used to have residential housing, but following a series of earthquakes (2011), the housing was removed.

We visited this area of abandoned urban land, with a waterway through it, on 8 April 2019. Below is some of what we saw.

Animals

Insects

Figitidae

This little insect, seen on a forget-me-not flower, is part of a family of parasitoid wasps.

Cosmopolitan Ground Beetle

Small Grass Fly

Southern Green Stink Bug

Butterflies and Moths

Cabbage White

Plantain moth

Capua semiferana

This is an endemic leaf roller moth.

Spiders

Sheetweb and Dwarf Weavers

Sheetweb and Dwarf Weaver (Family Linyphiidae).

Square-ended Crab Spider

Jumping Spiders

Poduromorpha

These are a species of Springtail. We left a white lid on the grass, and it soon had lots of these on it.

Unknown – egg cases

This line up of eggs was on a twig. We have been unable to determine what they were made by.

Birds

Black-shouldered Lapwing

Aquatic Animals

We didn’t spend much time looking in the water itself, but we did find these amphipods:

Paracalliope sp.

Plants

Poroporo

Dallis grass

Blue spruce

This was one of the trees in what would originally have been planted in someones garden on Amber Grove or Dunair Drive. It is native to Canada and the United States.

Riparian

Below are some of the plants seen along the waterway.

Soft-stemmed bulrush

Water forget-me-not

Fool’s watercress

Eastern bullrush

Abandoned road way

The roads that are no longer in use are gradually being taken over again by plants. These include weeds, while the lower drains also have mosses and wetland species.