I hope that you are coping with heat. Your kiwi will be doing it hard at the moment and the new chicks in particular would really benefit from some rain.

On the whole visitors are continuing to be pretty good with their dogs and there have been no known dog kills this summer.  We did have a young wild hatched chick flatten by a car on the main road just North of Timperly Road. It was only 600g and had a bill length of 68.3mm so was only a couple of months old.

Upcoming Kiwi Release:

Remember that we are having a kiwi release at the Parua Bay Community Centre – Sunday February 17 at 5.30pm.  Please let your friends and family know about this opportunity to get up close to kiwi in their backyard. These releases take a fair amount of preparation and work on the day so thank you to all those helping out.   Please let anyone who may be interested know about the kiwi release – particularly if they are a local dog owner and with more kiwi heading north into the “Kiwi Link” area all the time there are heaps of new folks getting kiwi into their backyards from Parua Bay northwards. Full details about the February Kiwi release here

Kiwi Bank New Zealander of the year award nominations

Further to last month’s report and the BYK and Kiwi Coast nominations for the Mitre 10 NZ community of the year awards.  The wider community driven kiwi recovery work of many Northland groups working together with the support of the  “Kiwi Coast” has been further recognized with the Kiwi Coast making the final three finalists – this is a great achievement and hopefully will give Northland kiwi recovery more good profile. Ngaire and a few others will be getting flashed up for the big awards night – good luck!

Backyard Kiwi Predator Control Programme :

Catches in the predator traps spiked for stoats in December with 5 and another 3 turned up this month. This is expected as it is stoat dispersal time with juveniles on the move and reinvading areas.

January: Stoats 3, Weasels 2, Cats 1, Rats 49, Hedgehogs 2 and 13 possums.

What your radio tracked Backyard Kiwi have been up to:

• Whitu’s January chick

   

  Whitu January 2019

The kiwi dads are finishing their second round of nesting and unless we get some decent rain that will be it for the season.

• Darwin – At Lamb road, still nesting hard in the pampas at the quarry (1.5 hours nightly activity only). 82 days nesting today and he hatched his first chick 18 days ago by his data stream, but I’m still waiting for his activity to go up after the second egg hatches before checking him.
• Lambert – Nesting in pampas at Taurikura Ridge. He got up to 90 days nesting before his activity dramatically increased. When I checked his nest the first chick had already left and the second egg was developed but dead.
• Whitu – Nested in pampas at the freezing works. After  99 days the data stream showed that he was finishing nesting and that his first egg had hatched 24 days before. On checking the nest the 1st chick had moved on, but his second successfully hatched chick was still there and I ID chipped him (see picture). Dad now has a new transmitter and is feeding up after nesting.
• EB – After EB’s injury scare in December it has been good to see his nightly activity increase to normal levels and he seems to have settled back down to normal life in the pampas at Kerr Road.
• Pakipaki – Back to the usual area of either the pampas at the Manaia club or across the paddock and down in the “Horse Paddock” opposite the fire station.
• Ross  – Inland from Solomon’s point, but now at the top end of Pepi road. 10 hours nightly activity.
• Wally – He had already moved west of the pampas before the mowing and has settled in the pine block there.
• Harikoa – In Ross’s pines between Lamb road and Taraunui road. Activity 10 hours.
• Mokopuna – The landowners at Campbell Road where Moko hangs out wanted to slash the pampas in the paddock there, so it was good to have her transmitted so we could check that she was clear of the mower.

ONE program (funded by Kiwis for Kiwi):

Rewarewa 
A couple more chicks transferred to Limestone this month with the second round of nesting starting to wind up.

• Waimarie – No signal for third month! I had a good search so either it is transmitter failure or he has moved dramatically.
• Ngutu Roa – 9 hours activity, West end of reserve.
• Sancho – Has re-nested in east end of Lovell’s bush. 4 hours activity at day 40 on 17/1/19.
• CFU – His transmitter band change is due but again he was too deep in tomo to catch – I could see that he was with female. Activity 9 hours.
• Kimposter – Has re-nested in usual area above quarry. 30 days on 25/1/19 and 3.5 hours activity
• Nick – Nesting in Lovell’s bush. He has hatched his first chick – LC1815 transferred to Limestone on 17/1/19, still on second egg 25/1/19 at 87 days and 4 hours activity…
• Ngaro – Hatched 1 chick – LC 1816 transferred to Limestone on 25/1/19, no second egg. Dad was 1880g, P, new transmitter band fitted.

 

Cheers

Todd Hamilton

Backyard Kiwi Project Manager
Whangarei Heads Landcare Forum

M 021 1145 385

E   hamiltont@maxnet.co.nz