Mon, 10 Aug 2009 9:27 am – Posted by Mandy | 14 Comments
Guest Blogger: Kakapo feeder, Stephanie Gray
By the look of the empty feed bowl, Sinbad enjoyed his kumara cubes and macadamia nuts last night.
Kakapo feeder Stephanie Gray gets to know one of the juvenile kakapo on Codfish island
He’s tidy too, leaving only a few crumbs, unlike the chicks who scatter lumps of pasty, half-chewed pellets up to two meters from their hopper—a kakapo feed station. I start to wipe down the hopper when, with a rustle of leaves and little grunt, Sinbad pokes his head through fern fronds.
The feed-out map and guide I carry mentioned that this particular bird may be roused from daytime slumber to visit, but I’m still taken aback at the sight of this beautiful, inquisitive creature. Sinbad ambles past again, lifting huge clawed feet high above the muck of peat mud and I blurt “Sinbad, you’re amazing. I love you.”
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Published in: Southland / Stewart Island
Tags: codfish island, kakapo, kakapo recovery programme
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Wed, 25 Mar 2009 1:38 pm – Posted by Emma Gilkinson | 4 Comments
Guest blogger: Kakapo nest-minder, Emma Gilkinson
It’s 8.30 pm and I’m glued to the black and white screen. Sarah the Kakapo is the star of the show. At the moment she is a still feathery pillow with eyes like shiny black berries that open and close from time to time. I’m sitting in a tent 300m away from her nest, in the heart of the forest of Codfish Island, the epi-centre of the Kakapo Recovery Programme. An infra-red camera has been installed at Sarah’s nest to relay her movements to the palm-sized monitor I’m watching.
8.36 p.m. Sarah’s left claw emerges to scratch her left cheek.
I note that down. I’ve come to Codfish Island to be a volunteer ‘Nest Minder’ for a fortnight. Nest Minders are required to keep a vigilant eye on kakapo Mums overnight during the breeding season. The nocturnal birds leave their nests at night to feed, but if they’re gone too long their eggs or chicks risk getting too cold and may need incubation or warming up on the nest with a ‘heat pad’.
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Published in: General, Native land animals, Southland / Stewart Island
Tags: codfish island, kakapo recovery programme, volunteer
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Thu, 08 Jan 2009 3:31 pm – Posted by Heather Anderson | 4 Comments
I write this last update from my study in Dunedin, where I am resting for a couple of days after my few weeks of hard work on the island. I was pretty sad to leave my feathered friends and the magical Whenua Hou where I had such an amazing experience with this fantastic and successful programme to help restore the kakapo population to its former glory.
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Published in: General
Tags: kakapo recovery programme
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Tue, 23 Dec 2008 7:40 am – Posted by Heather Anderson | 4 Comments
After receiving our training from the four friendly DOC rangers on the island my 2 compadres and I are now fully fledged kakapo supplementary feeders. On the first day we each did a round of feeding stations alone with one ranger. This was a perfect introduction to the feeding and cleaning protocols and also to the island in general. The Kakapo Programme Officers who are on the island during my stay have all been here for over 2 years and are incredibly knowledgeable about the history, flora and fauna of Whenua hou and of course the kakapo.
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Published in: General
Tags: codfish island, kakapo, kakapo recovery programme
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