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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Wed, 25 Feb 2009 2:23 pm – Posted by Brian Lloyd | 3 Comments
Forest & Bird’s Bat Survey Officer, Top of the South, Brian Lloyd
Tasked with the job of surveying bat populations in the top of the South island, I have spent many summer days setting out bat detectors around the countryside in the hope that they pick up the high frequency echolocation (or clicks) that bats use to navigate their way around.
Short-tailed bat, Photo: Rosalind Cole
Sometimes a seemingly fruitless task , finding populations of these rare and elusive short-tailed and long-tailed bats, contributes to a national picture of the status of these two disappearing species.
Differing not only in appearance, but also with respect to feeding patterns & behaviour, our two bat species share little in common.
Short –tailed bats generally roost in large tree cavities, and in winter are known to stay in their roosts and go into torpor. Like our kakapo, they have a lek breeding system, which is the equivalent of a male sing-star contest to win over a prize mate. Most peculiarly though, is the way that they forage. Unlike most other micro-bats that catch air-borne creatures, short-tailed bats are known to forage on the ground using their folded wings as front limbs. This unusual trait makes them particularly vulnerable to predation. In the central North Island I found several thousand of these wonderful creatures in the large tracts of indigenous forest from Urewera west to Taranaki. A career highlight!
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Published in: General, Native land animals, Top of the South
Tags: extinction, long-tailed bat, short-tailed bat, volunteer
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Mon, 16 Feb 2009 8:59 am – Posted by Ailsa Howard | 1 Comment
Guest blogger: Chairperson for the Kaikoura Branch, Ailsa Howard
While DOC has been busy crafting dummy sea-lions in an attempt to attract males ashore, the Kaikoura community along with the local DOC staff have been involved in a charade of our own: playing the call of the endangered Hutton’s shearwater through loud speakers, in bid to get them to return to their new breeding site.
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Published in: General, Native land animals, Top of the South
Tags: fundraising, migration, predator proof fence, recovery programme, shearwater, volunteer
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