Rowi Project Blog

Hayley and I decided to make hay while the sun was shining (it had been raining for two weeks straight) and do a transmitter change on a male breeding rowi called Norman.

To get to Norman and his partner, we had to access the sanctuary from beautiful Mapourika Lake by boat (not a bad start to the day). The lake was so swollen from all the rain that the wharf was completely under water.

Beautiful Mapourika Lake. Photo: Lizzy Sutcliffe

We caught a ride with Iain and Kirsty across the lake (Kirsty is working for DOC’s Research and Development Team studying the kea living in Okarito forest) they where heading in the kiwi zone as well to put new transmitters on some juvenile kea.  As well as rowi, kea are just one of the many incredible species, including kotuku/white herons and royal spoonbills, that make Okarito such a special place.

The kea nest is in the base of a huge tree and Hayley and I stuck around to help – we had never seen juvenile kea.

Haley checking one of the juvenile kea

It was really cool to see the how the tricky bits of working with kea are overcome compared to kiwi, (kea are much more difficult birds to track because they fly!). They needed to use a huge staff, nearly three metres long, to reach the juveniles in the deep burrow. We were expecting to find two kea chicks but to our surprise there were three.

So much is different about working with kea compared to kiwi, for starters kea wear their transmitters on their backs like wee backpacks, unlike the kiwi who have their transmitters on their legs. And having wings which flap and flutter in your face while you’re trying to attach their transmitters makes it extremely difficult. You can also get a more definite indication of the sex of a kea by measuring the crown, not like the kiwi as we have difficulty determining sex even after measuring the bill.

By the time we were halfway through putting on the first juvenile’s transmitter the curtains were just about closed on our weather window and then it started raining….so unfortunately we couldn’t get Norman’s transmitter changed. It is too much of a health risk to work with kiwi in the rain; if Norman’s feathers got wet they would stay wet and expose the bird to the cold.

Instead we set off to get some kea signals. We both felt privileged to see the juvenile keas and their beautiful feathers and happy to help another team in Okarito Kiwi Zone.

Me with one of the fantastic kea chicks.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 1:30 pm by Lucy – Rowi Field Ranger and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.