Titi, or sooty shearwaters, have one of the longest migrations of any bird on the planet.
Department of Conservation sea bird scientist, Graeme Taylor, is on Rangatira Island, in the Chatham Islands, to find out where they go.
His team employ a novel approach to try to retrieve 16 geolocators in 10 days.
Have a watch…
Rangatira Island, is one of New Zealand’s premier sea bird islands. It is free of all introduced pests and it is riddled with sea bird burrows.
For the first time ever, you can watch kākāpō nesting activity streaming live from remote Whenua Hou/Codfish Island.
Our photo of the week shows foster mother Esperance caring for a chick but, if you head over to the Kākāpō Recovery website, you can see streaming real time footage of the pair.
Nestcam footage will stream 24 hours a day, however the activity will occur during the New Zealand night time, because kākāpō are nocturnal parrots.
Telecom NZ who supplied most of the technology:
“Because so much of the recovery programme takes place in the wild, on remote and protected islands, kākāpō nesting has to-date been limited to a very small audience. We’re delighted to have the connectivity in this remote location, and to contribute the technology needed to enable this precious event to be shared live with the world,” Andrew Pirie, Telecom General Manager Corporate Relations.
New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Ltd (NZAS) as major sponsor of Kākāpō Recovery NZAS has contributed significant financial support, while its employees assist with operational support.
“Our staff at NZAS have loved working in partnership with the Recovery team during the past 24 years, helping out on the island with maintenance, supplementary feedout and nest minding. It’s great that the team can now share part of that special kākāpō experience with the rest of New Zealand,” NZAS general manager Gretta Stephens.
Forest and Bird who administer the trust account that external donations and sponsorship money are made to. This ensures supporters can be sure all financial contributions to the programme go directly to Kākāpō Recovery.
By Kath Inwood, Partnerships Ranger, Nelson
The Motueka sandspit is an internationally significant site for shorebirds, providing roosting and nesting space for variable oystercatchers and banded dotterel, and temporary lodgings for the bar-tailed godwit. Being so close to town, however, it is a popular spot for Motueka dog owners to walk their dogs.
A variable oystercatcher
Ranger Ross and some of the dogs
To improve awareness of the birds in the area, we got together with Tasman District Council and Birds New Zealand to try out an Australian idea – the Dog’s Breakfast. This event provides dog owners an opportunity to learn about the birds of the foreshore and sandspit over a bacon and egg butty (sandwich).
Around 50 dog walkers turned out to breakfast with their dogs over a two and a half hour period on Saturday 8 March.
With the smell of sizzling bacon in the background, David Melville from Birds New Zealand explained that variable oystercatchers and banded dotterel are key inhabitants of the sandspit area, along with the better-known bar-tailed godwits, who make the 11,000km flight between New Zealand and Alaska.
The crowd gathers for the dog’s breakfast
The purpose of the breakfast was to raise awareness of dog owners about the significance of this area for shorebirds, and to enable them to be more informed about how they can minimise the disturbance to wildlife, while enjoying the benefits of an area such as this to walk their dogs.
Today’s photo of the week is of a red-crowned parakeet/kākāriki taking a bath in a stream in Rotorua. Kākāriki, means ‘small green parrot’ in Māori.
There are five main species of kākāriki. The red-crowned species is distinguished by a bright crimson forehead, crown and a streak extending back beyond the eyes.
Attacks by introduced predators such as stoats and rats are the main threat to kākāriki.
This photo was taken by Jackson Wood | CC BY-NC 2.0.
The bush wren, laughing owl, and native thrush are all extinct.
Stoats are thought to have caused their demise—as well as the decline of many of New Zealand’s other indigenous bird species. They also feed heavily on our native reptiles and invertebrates.
The images below show the devastation that a stoat can wreck on our native species—in this case New Zealand’s smallest bird, the rifleman/titipounamu.
DOC ranger, Anja McDonald, sent through these heartbreaking images.
They were taken at Tennyson Inlet in the Marlborough Sounds. She explains:
The male bird was in the nest when the stoat came and we don’t see any pictures of him coming out again. The rifleman mother then returns to her nest. The things in her beak are likely to be the remains of either her husband or her chicks.
When we climbed the tree later, to bring the camera in, there was only a female around, which suggests the stoat possibly ate both the adult male and the chicks.
A very sad end for these small birds, but a important reminder of the pest control work that needs to be done to protect our native species.
