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Archives For 30/11/1999

Remix my mates during NZ music month and make me a bona fide rock star!

Sirocco the Spokesbird —  06/05/2011

It’s time to vote. Check out my lastest blog post!

Skraaark! To celebrate New Zealand music month, and to raise the profile of New Zealand’s avian songsters, I’m putting out the call for the musically talented to remix the wonderful sounds of New Zealand’s unique birds. It’s a competition people!

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Remix
tr. v. re·mixed, re·mix·ing, re·mix·es
To recombine (audio tracks or channels from a recording) to produce a new or modified audio recording:
remixed a popular ballad and turned it into a dance hit.
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New Zealand birds obviously have charisma and good looks (especially us kakapo), and everyone knows we’ve got a unique sound, but nothing’s really ever happened with our music… and we don’t want to have to go out and get real jobs. Sitting in trees sounding awesome is just fine by us.

As I dwelt on our undeniable greatness, the reason for our failure dawned on me – we are yet to release a really great track. It’s not that we don’t have anything to release, New Zealand birds have been recorded time and time again, but something that Simon Owl said to me recently has just stuck in my head. He said to me, “I think we need to get with the times Sirocco”.

I pressed him for more information, but all he could say when he took off his headphones was “dubstep, dubstep, dubstep”. I thought he was a little mad until I did some research and my eyes were opened to the possibilities! I reckon that my booming, and Simon’s hooting, would go really well with a bit of ‘wob-wob-wob-wob’ dubstep… what do you think?

We need someone who can take our sounds and turn them into something banging! Are you that person? If you think you’re up for the challenge why not dust off the MPC, or that Stratocaster that’s been sitting in the corner of your room, and do your worst?!

Sirocco the rockstar kakapo. Photo: Mike Bodie.

Sirocco the rockstar kakapo

Feel free to draw on any member of SAVE – the Society of Avian Vocal Entertainers – and even a bit of yourself if you like too!

Get your remixes in to me by the end of New Zealand Music Month (31 May 2011) and, together with our very special guest judge – the mad morepork Simon Owl, I’ll choose the track most likely to make me (and you if you’re lucky) a star!

The top entries will be posted on the Department of Conservation website and our adoring fans will have an opportunity to vote for their favourite.

The remix that is voted the best will be showered with gorgeous gifts* and forever benefit from the profile afforded them as a result of their close association with famous, cuddly, adorable, sexy me! And who knows, the television appearances, radio play and recording contracts might just start rolling in… bona fide rock star status achieved! Winning!
So, email me blog@doc.govt.nz:

  • Your contact details
  • The title of your track
  • A great sound file (video optional):
    • No longer than 5 minutes
    • No bigger than 10 MB
    • MPEG4 for video and MP3 for audio
  • An acknowledgement of the people/organisations who contributed to your remix – we need to share the glory.

Here are some resources to start you off but, feel free to cast your net wider:

I feel this is the start of something great! Be a part of it.

* Okay, showered with gifts might be an exaggeration but you will receive a copy of the brilliant Unnatural History of Kakapo DVD and a copy of Alison Ballance’s amazing book Kakapo: Rescued From the Brink of Extinction. Oh, and did I mention the glory?

Read the competition terms and conditions

In Kiwi, Native animals, Sirocco the kakapo
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The world’s first takapo eggs

Department of Conservation —  01/04/2011

Here on Maud Island in the Marlborough Sounds we’re very excited and a little bemused at finding what could be the world’s first takapo eggs this morning. 

Sirocco the incorrigible and amorous kakapo has already earned himself a reputation for attempting to mate outside his species but it seems this time he has outdone himself. 

Haggis and Sirocco, the expectant parents

Just over a week ago, on his 14th birthday, Sirocco’s feelings for his friend Haggis the takahē became public when he ruminated on his Facebook page “She’s cute… but she likes figs and I like apples…could anything ever happen between us? Does she even like me?” 

Now, at the start of April, we have the answer! 

The two eggs, found in a nest hidden under long grass, are being closely monitored. 

So far Haggis is proving to be a great mum although, unlike male takahē, who normally share responsibility for the raising of their young, she has discovered that all is not so smooth in cross-species relationships, with Sirocco proving to be a very wings-off kind of dad. 

In hindsight, they make a pretty good pairing though – both are big, heavy, flightless birds at the mercy of introduced mammalian predators. 

Pest free islands are their refuge. And it seems, like humans, these birds come together in times of trial. 

Haggis and Sirocco with their newly found eggs

Both kakapo and takahē eggs have around a 30 day incubation period so, if all goes well, we can expect to see some takapo chicks in the next three weeks. 

Or not.

In Native animals, Nelson/Marlborough, Sirocco the kakapo
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Mini miracles as kakapo chicks pull through

Sirocco the Spokesbird —  21/03/2011

Skraaaark! Exciting news coming up from Codfish Island via Skype-apo. The chick season is well and truly underway and so far all my little cousins are doing brilliantly. Nothing’s certain in kakapo-land, but wings crossed, they’re doing well!

Chatting with ranger Jo (I used to like sitting on her left foot), there’s been a couple of great stories so far:

DIY Egg

The lovely Suzanne has been doing a great job looking after Solstice’s eggs…but unfortunately she had a slight mishap and stood on one of them. (Too much rimu juice eh, Su?) The shell cracked – but luckily the rangers came to the rescue. They took the egg back to base and set to work with glue and masking tape…I’m not sure if that technique is in any medical manual but it worked. The chick inside stabilised, and a while later hatched and is doing grand – well done guys!

A Good Feed

Most of the chicks are now being looked after in nests, either by their mum or foster mum, with the others being hand reared. The fact that this is possible is due to another major breakthrough by the lovely Kakapo Recovery guys.

In the past, pretty much all the eggs had to be hand-reared, because the mums couldn’t do it themselves. This was partly due to the fact that they wouldn’t eat the supplementary food the rangers were giving them to feed them up (why would anyone ever turn down food??). That meant they weren’t strong enough to look after the chicks, so the rangers had to do it.

A Kakapo chick being hand fed, Codfish Island, 2008

But last breeding season, a few of the mums worked out that they could raise chicks on a combination of supplementary food pellets and rimu fruit. This year four mums are managing to raise chicks this way, despite the poor rimu crop. A chick raised in the nest is going to be heavier and healthier than one raised by hand, so this is fantastic news for the future.

Ripe Rimu fruit, responsible for triggering and sustaining Kakapo breeding

So some fab stuff going on down there. Thanks as ever to the whole kakapo team – DOC rangers and boffins, vollies, Rio Tinto Alcan and Forest & Bird…your work is much appreciated, and if you ever come and visit me on Maud Island, I’ll show my gratitude in time-honoured tradition – with a quick run up your leg and a beak in your ear…! Skraaark!

A baby picture of me – only two weeks old

In Native animals, Nelson/Marlborough, Sirocco the kakapo, Southland
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Kakapo ‘curse’ hits breeding season – but more eggs to come

Sirocco the Spokesbird —  28/02/2011

Skraaark! I’ve just had a skype-apo chat with DOC scientist Ron Moorhouse and he’s told me a few things that are happening down on Codfish Island. It’s good news and bad news – so business as usual in kakapo land!

The good news is that so far we’ve got 18 eggs, and we’re still hoping for more – maybe another couple of nests if we’re lucky. Get booming fellas! Go get ‘em, girls!

Comparison of eggs: hen egg (top)
and kakapo egg (bottom)

The problem though is one that’s haunted us for many years – we find it quite hard to produce healthy eggs. Why? Well, it’s a bit delicate – but when you realise that there are so few of us and that most of us are related in one way or another, you might get the idea. I guess this is the ‘kakapo curse’ – when you get over-friendly with a relative, there’s gonna be trouble.

What this means in real terms is that around half of our eggs don’t make it to chick-time. On the nesting table you’ll see that at the moment several of the eggs are listed as either ‘infertile’ or ‘e.d.e’ – which stands for ‘embryo died early’. This is the curse, and it comes from being such a small population.

Removing eggs from Lisa's nest (2002 season)
Lisa laid three e.d.e. eggs this season

Obviously our DOC friends are doing everything they can to help. It was great news back in the 1970s when we kakapo came out of hiding and they found us on both Stewart Island and in Fiordland. There were only a few Fiordland birds, but they were vital in terms of the genetic diversity they offered – the late, lamented Richard Henry may well yet provide some much needed “new blood” through his surviving offspring, Sinbad, Gulliver and Kuia.

The next problem to overcome is that we don’t want too many more boys. We need girls to keep the numbers going up, but in the past there just weren’t enough of them. But luckily a few years ago the scientists worked out one of our kakapo secrets: if you feed up a kakapo girl, then she’s more likely to have boy chicks – because she knows that if she’s healthy, then the boy will grow up to be a lusty, booming stud muffin who will keep her line going.

But if the mum is a bit skinny, she’ll worry that a boy chick will be a runt…so she produces a girl instead! Once they worked that out a few years ago, they cut back the rations to produce more girls – and it’s worked. It goes about 50:50 now, which has got to be good news for everyone concerned!

Two month old Kakapo chicks from 2009 breeding season

So it’s all a bit complicated, and to be honest I’m glad I’m up here on Maud Island having a good old time with local school kids coming to see me, and the occasional ranger for me to jump on.

Chick-time is coming – maybe in the next couple of weeks. I’ll keep in touch with Ron and my friends down on Codfish and I’ll let you know what’s happening. Skraaaark!

In Native animals, Sirocco the kakapo, Southland
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Kākāpō breeding season could be fruitless

Sirocco the Spokesbird —  01/02/2011

Skraaark! Sometimes it’s tough being a kākāpō. In the last month we’ve lost a couple of our elders, Richard Henry and Whiskas, and now it looks like bad news for the breeding season.

We kākāpō are a simple bunch – feed us up and we’ll get a bit frisky, but take away the food and we just won’t be in the mood. What that means in reality is we rely heavily on there being a good supply of rimu fruit down on Codfish and Anchor Islands, and talking to the DOC rangers down there suggests it’s not going well.

Ripe rimu fruit

Mmm... juicy rimu fruit!

Here’s the deal (they explained it to me simply as maths isn’t a kākāpō’s strong point). Around 11-12% of the rimu fruit on the trees needs to ripen enough for us to eat it. Back in October last year the level was around 21% on Codfish, so it was looking good. But now, it’s gone pear (or rimu) shaped, and it’s down to about 9%. That means there’ll be some nests, but not the 20 we were hoping for. The rangers are now hoping for around five.

On Anchor Island it’s down to 6% on most of the trees. There might be enough on a couple of trees to prompt a couple of nests – but hopes for the first of our kind to be born in Fiordland in decades are fading.

A grand old rimu tree.

A grand old rimu tree

It does make you think – go back to pre-human times in NZ, and we were one of the most common birds here (when I say common, I mean in terms of numbers…we were always pretty superior…). So imagine how much rimu fruit there must have been to keep us going. But now, vast amounts of those trees have gone, mainly because of logging and possums.

So it’s a bit sad, but when it comes to breeding, us kākāpō don’t make it easy. Last year wasn’t good but 2009 was a great one. So we’re doing okay…and who knows, keep those wings crossed for some more kākāpō action this season!

If you want to keep track of which kakapo are mating and who has laid eggs this season check out the nesting table.

Sirocco

PS I’ve been asked how my dear friend Whiskas got his name. Well, when you’re a kākāpō – or a DOC ranger working with us – you’ve got to have a sense of humour. He was called Whiskas because if they’d left him on Stewart Island, he would have been cat food… Skraaark!

In Native plants, Sirocco the kakapo, Southland
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