From gravel pit to stunning reserve

In the 1960s when "a bunch of old guys" started looking at the gravel pit and pig farm site east of Masterton as a potential inland lake and wildlife reserve, a new GP in town, Dr Tenick Dennison thought the idea was a "load of old rubbish. It really was a derelict eyesore."
However, it was this concept, which eventually captured his imagination, and allied with his lifetime commitment to conservation work especially in the area of preserving birdlife, he has been awarded a place in the New Year Honours list.
Dr Dennison has been named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM), predominately for his ornithological work.
It's the "icing on the cake" he said. "I'm thrilled to bits."
Dr Dennison has just celebrated 52 years marriage to Janet. He collected a Masterton District Council Civic Award just before Christmas and in October he was presented with a Wellington conservancy conservation award. He's known around town as "Mr Henley Lake" and he drives his grey Holden Astra emblazoned with Henley Lake Trust 2003 on the side. "It lets me drive around the reserve without people getting niggly at a car being there," he chuckles. At almost 80 years old his enthusiasm for life and conservation is infectious.
"The Henley Lake site was the most depressing place but I have to hand it to them, those who set up the trust in 1966 must have been incredibly long sighted and look what they've created. It's hard to believe," he said waving his hand across the wetlands to Henley Lake itself from atop the new observation tower, the most recent addition to the reserve.
Dr Dennison has been chairman of the revamped Henley Lake Trust since 2003.
In that time trust members and the Friends of the Trust organisation, have raised more than $100,000 to develop Henley Lake.
"We've been lucky, we had something to build on. The old guys just had a paddock."
It was Dr Dennison who talked Masterton Rotary Club members in the early 1990s to take on Henley Lake as a major ongoing project. He rallied a keen bunch of supporters who do regular planting and weeding and some of the building projects.
Dr Dennison spends an hour each morning weeding and tidying at the reserve.
"It had been vested with the Masterton District Council in 1991 but nothing really exciting was happening, it was simply maintained," he said. "Ratepayer dollars have to go in so many directions."
"The Trust has no real legal status but we've got the goodwill of the council behind us and it goes a long way when applying for funding. We basically look after the development of the lake reserve, the maintenance and planting."
After medical school in Dunedin he worked in hospitals in New Plymouth, Ashburton and London before coming to Masterton in 1959 to join old friend Dr Owen Prior. They set up practice together in Perry Street.
When he retired after 30 years working as a GP and paediatrician, Dr Dennison turned his energy away from medicine towards his other passion in life ? birds.
From an early age he would hide in sheds and bushes and watch birds, sketching them in notebooks. His ornithological knowledge is respected throughout New Zealand and he said it comes from a lifetime passion of a subject rather than formal learning.
He has published a book on birds of Wairarapa, is the region's representative on the Ornithological Society of New Zealand, a member of the National Wildlife centre Trust Board and the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society. He's twice been to the Chatham Islands in search of the rare taiko petrel.