What your Backyard Kiwi were up to in December:
Darwin – At Lamb Road quarry in the pampas- high activity.
Whitu – Hatched a chick on 21 November. After monitoring his signal
regularly finally after 21 days his activity started to rise and I could go
and check him without upsetting his nesting on the second egg. His 1st chick
had left by then but his second had recently hatched – he was ID chipped,
DNA sampled and named “Gypsy” by locals (see photo). I did Whitu’s annual
transmitter change at the same time.
Dallas – Is still nesting in weeds beside road in Taurikura- close to
Baptist camp.
Lambert – On his second nest at Taurikura ridge hatch due any day now.
Waka – Still on second nest. 1st egg hatched on 18/12/13 – still waiting for
activity to increase before going into nest.
Charlotte– Unfortunately she was found on New Year’s Eve drowned in an old
topless concrete water tank that is usually empty. This was 500m south of
anywhere she has been tracked before -which is strange as Waka is nesting –
she may have been disturbed by all the holiday goers’ activity? From her
condition she had been in the empty tank for a few days and then the
extremely heavy rain on the 28th flooded the tank and drowned her. The
other strange thing was that there was a wild male bird in with her – he had
only been in there since the water level had fallen (less than 24 hours).
He appeared in good health but I put a transmitter on him so I check his
activity. The landowners named him Lucky – he now has ID chip 6E6D277,
weight 1900g, bill length 95.0mm. The landowners have covered the tank now.
Also on the upside is that Waka and Charlotte have had two successful nests
this season. We have named one of those chicks Charlotte.
JR – South Taurikura Ridge. He has re-nested as suspected but his activity is
pretty high at 6 hours after 28 days of nesting so it may not last:
Charlie – At McNamnara’s at Craig Road – On nest – he hatched his first ever
chick 14/12/13. He is still on the 2nd egg and I have been waiting for his
activity to increase before going into the nest.
Kiwiana – He is still recovering from his broken leg at Massey University,
x-rays show that the bone is healing but still a few weeks away from having
his pins out.
Webb – Hiding somewhere on the Kauri Mt coast
Bill – this is the wild bird found with Webb last month. He has remained in
a similar spot.
Clover – This guy is in dense kiekie on the eastern slopes of Manaia safe
from dogs and difficult to monitor so when I caught up with him this month I
removed his transmitter.
Keeping your Kiwi safe:
Visitors’ Dogs
Please remind any summer visitors with dogs that they need to keep their dog
under control to avoid kiwi deaths. Most of our local dog owners are very
good but during summer some visitors don’t know about the risk their pets
are to our kiwi.
Road kill
Thanks to Heather and Martin Hunt for making the two “kiwi crossing” road
signs recently put up to remind night drivers to watch out for kiwi.