My office is the most beautiful forest in New Zealand (Westland lowland podocarp). I get to peek at a remarkable bird after scaling hills and pushing through forest to find that simple entrance and to see their ever familiar fluffy bums, long beaks and claws staring back. I get to observe them running around at night and, just about my favourite thing, I get to be out at night and hear them calling to each other. During transmitter changing season I get to see them up close and personal and observe their crazy behaviour, (blowing bubbles and pretending to fall asleep).

The familiar site of a kiwi bum down a kiwi burrow.

Yesterday was no exception…  egg season is upon us, and myself, Anna and two very cool volunteers, Mark and Kristina, flew into the centre of the Okarito Kiwi Zone and got dropped at different locations…. That’s right, we were privileged enough to get to fly in on a helicopter and out! 

Anna unloads the egg box from the helicopter.

I wasn’t the only one buzzing. We were all very excited about the flight that morning, particularly Mark who, when we dropped him and Anna at the first hut, was so overcome with helicopter excitement he undertook the most classic banana-peel slip onto his derrière in front of the hut. Kristina and I watched from the helicopter in stitches.

Mark in the chopper.

After dropping-off Anna and Mark, Christina and I flew into Company Creek Hut and set off up the hill to track down Callum and his partner’s egg. 

Now the thing I don’t like so much about my job is when equipment fails in the field, and it occasionally does.  Kristina and I had just got a nice strong signal from a ridge and were feeling good about our (surely?) close-by nest. We set off down the gully, but once I got onto flat ground the radio receiver just stopped working. It took a while to discover the cause – a few drops of water on the receiver – after which I dried it and straightened the aerial cord, turned my radio receiver on and off and suddenly it worked again.  A relief and we soon found the entrance, said hello to Callum and his Mrs, carefully retrieved and candled the egg, and got out of there.  

Rowi egg successfully located.

We made it back to the hut just in time for our ride (a helicopter – did I mention that already?). Anna, Mark and his sore derrière also successfully retrieved a beautiful big egg from their pair, Charger and Dawn. 

Another brilliant day in the life of a kiwi ranger. ;)

Iain and Anna have been away on Motuara Island for the week delivering our first round of eggs to Willowbank for the season… five in total! Jim our manager and Ieuan are on a training course in Hokitika, and Duncan, our team leader, is on a much-deserved holiday in India and Nepal.

I have been out in the field with Myles (who is usually tasking himself with weeds) but, as this is a quieter time for staff who aren’t in the rowi team and our breeding season is starting to kick off, he has been coming out with me.

Myles is a bullet in the bush, and is handy with telemetry so it’s been great. We went to do a harness change on a juvenile yesterday who gave me a nasty scratch – the bleeding stinging kind! That’s right its not all ‘fluffy ducks’ in this job, kiwis are feisty things – and they need to be with pests like stoats and rats on the prowl.

We have a busy few weeks ahead of us with skyranger detecting another 12 eggs yesterday – more on this next week.

In addition to our kiwi work, this week Ieuan and I started some new work which will be ongoing until the end of December. With us were Kayla and Leila, two students from South Westland Area school who will be helping us for the duration of this project. We will be monitoring the burrows of blue penguins/korora in two different colonies on the West Coast to determine breeding success over the breeding season. One of the colonies borders Okarito Kiwi Zone and Korora are an important part of the amazing diverse ecosystem of this beautiful area.

Kayla and Leila help us to monitor these little birds.

We are continuing the work of the West Coast Blue Penguin Trust in this area. The population of blue penguins on the West Coast has been little studied and many aspects of their ecology are still unknown. Blue penguins are classified as a species of ‘least concern’ and are not believed to approach the threshold for population decline. Despite this, blue penguin (Eudyptula minor) colonies are believed to be declining in many areas in Australia and New Zealand.

In parts of New Zealand, including predator-free offshore islands, penguin populations have also declined, which suggests that declines may be linked to events in the marine environment and are not due solely to on-land threats. Anecdotal evidence suggests that one of the areas of declining population is the West Coast of the South Island. We want to monitor the long-term population and breeding success with the aim of conserving the blue penguins on the West Coast.

Ieuan and I prepare to look in some penguin burrows!

To monitor these penguins we use a burrowscope and small video screen. Once we have identified a penguin burrow we move the burrowscope slowly up into the burrow to look for the penguins nesting – usually right at the end. The burrows can be found quite far inshore and sometimes up steep hills – it’s amazing to see the hills these tiny penguins can tackle! We can tell when we are at the end as we usually see a pile of sticks that the penguins have dragged in to make a nest.

We were very excited the first week to discover a few penguins were beginning to nest already! We watched on a small black and white screen as we moved the burrowscope into the burrow. Once the penguins are nesting and breeding, we should see them sitting in the burrow each week together. It is quite a treat to see a penguin face staring back at you as you reach the end of the burrow! Sometimes they growl when they see the end of the burrowscope, so we disturb them as little as possible. We quickly try to determine if there are two adults in the nest and if we can see any eggs or young chicks that may have hatched.

We will continue to observe the nests each week until all of the chicks have ‘fledged’, which means they leave the safety of the burrow and head out to sea to begin to feed for themselves.

We’ll let you know how their breeding season progresses!

There are several Massey University student projects happening with the unique kiwi there. Due to the unusually high density of kiwi living on the island, the birds are not as territorial as kiwi typically are.

Ieuan holding one of the North Island brown kiwi.

On our arrival we met the team who are currently working on various studies including investigating the unique reproductive traits and behaviours of these kiwi. They have found a few instances of a female with two males and want to investigate if both males help to incubate an egg that is not related to them. It would be very interesting to ascertain why an unrelated male would put energy into incubating an egg that is not his own. They will also be following chicks to investigate factors such as dispersal and parental care.

On the first evening we donned our head-torches and warm jackets and went out for a walk to do some kiwi spotting. We tramped quietly up through the bush in an area called Red Stoney Valley where there are a big group of kiwi living. Unfortunately there were none feeding in this area so we were not able to see any our first night out, however we could hear lots of kiwi in the distance calling to each other which was amazing to hear!

Gathering blood samples.

The next morning we headed out for a big day of tracking kiwi in the same valley, taking blood samples and weighing the birds. It was very exciting for Ieuan and I to find so many birds in such a small area of bush as we are used to walking for at least a couple of hours to find just one pair of rowi back home in Okarito! I wonder if this is what the whole of New Zealand would have been like before man, dogs and stoats arrived?

We were lucky enough to spend five days in total assisting the students and loved our time working with the kiwi and exploring their home. It was also wonderful to see an abundance of other native birds and also a change in native forest from South Westland—highlights being nikau palms and mighty kauri trees!

Many thanks to the students and landowners for accommodating us.

Rowi often have quite elaborate burrows, these make great homes as they are hard for other animals (including humans) to get into. Our birds have been taking full advantage of this, meaning that during the first move we were only able to collect three pairs and on this occasion we set off for Blumine with only one pair – Norman and Jean.

Lucy collecting Norman.

Sneak and Snock, our last pair, remain at large…for now!

We released Norman and Jean on our way out to Motuara (the crèche island for the BNZ Operation Nest Egg chicks) and also spent time circling Blumine to get signals for the pairs already there – noting some interesting results.

Three of the birds, Socrates, Lazza, and Nightcrawler, were in the same bays they had been released, but others had been on some wee adventures.

Kermit had left his partner, Gonzo, and crossed to the other side of the island. Quick to take advantage of this, Nightcrawler has convinced Gonzo to come join him in his new territory. Unimpressed with her (ex)partner’s behaviour, Stealth has ditched Nightcrawler and headed north.

We just hope this new pairing may prove successful in reproducing – we’ll keep you posted.

I had caught the bird a few weeks ago by calling it in at night. Because kiwi are very plucky and territorial we are able to bring them to us by imitating the male call. We are then able to catch the male when he comes in to fight to protect his territory and mate. However the male I caught was not the male we thought was in that territory. He was a BNZ Operation Nest Egg offspring from 2006. Because there had been a shakeup in this territory we needed to see if he had a partner. 

Rein locates the burrow.

Knowing that it was close to breeding time I cautiously tracked into the pair, led by Rein’s keen nose. She led me directly to the burrow and when I looked inside not only did I see two birds but, off to the side, the burrow also contained our first egg of the season. This was Rein’s first time to find an egg! 

The birds were not sitting on the egg and it was in a place that suggested the birds had not been incubating it. I needed to think quickly what I was going to do. The egg could be quite young which makes it harder to incubate successfully but it didn’t look like the birds were going to be sitting on it. 

I decided I needed to take a closer look at it so I reached in to retrieve it. The egg was still slightly warm but it was obvious they had not sat on it that day. Its best chance was to take it back to an incubator at the office. 

Me, Rein and the first egg of the season.

We candled the egg back at Franz. As it had a really small air cell and we could not see any development we determined that it was quite a fresh egg. It will be incubated for 15 days and by this time, if it is a good egg, we will see some development. 

Being such a young egg its chances for hatching are not great, let’s cross our fingers for this wee egg.

Mr Sumo was from one of the original pairs monitored in the early 90s to research how often rowi lay eggs and what was causing the population to decline.

When we get a mortality signal it’s really important to find out what is happening as soon as possible. If there is a disease or rogue dog killing kiwi we need to act fast so that more birds do not die. 

I headed out into his territory to find out what was going on.  I was hoping that it was just a false mortality (this can happen if the transmitter falls off before it should or if the transmitter gets damaged) and not a dead Mr Sumo.

Mr Sumo’s home is 1 km south of Okarito lagoon, it is quite close to the road and after the incident with Cee Cee this was the first place I needed to check. I did not get a signal on the road so I was still optimistic of the false mort.

I headed into the forest and, once I got to the top of the first ridge, I got a good signal for him, “dam, it’s indicating a mortality”.

Still crossing my fingers he was alive I left the track to find him. I tracked down into a gulley and then back onto another ridge. The forest was quite damp and swampy, it felt like I was getting to the edge of his territory.

Back onto a ridge the travel was a bit easier and after a few minutes I came across poor Mr Sumo’s body lying not too far from a patch of Gahnia. His body was quite decomposed and the transmitter was telling me he had been dead for nearly 40 days.

The 'crime scene' containing the remains of Mr Sumo

I now needed to do some ‘CSI’ work to find out the cause of death. First I examined the surrounding area, about two meters around the carcass for anything that could suggest predation. I was looking for any signs of a struggle, looking for scuff marks, piles of feathers or anything that would suggest he had been attacked.

With nothing found in this search I now needed to examine his carcass. I looked at the position of his body, if it is stashed under bushes this can suggest predation as a lot of predators will not eat out in the open for fear of something attacking them.

The body was not stashed so now I looked more closely at the body to see if there were any signs of attack. Stoats will attack at the neck where as dogs will just rip the bird to pieces, I could not see any these signs on his body. 

With nothing left to search in the field I packaged him up and headed for home.

His body will be sent to Massey Wildlife Health Centre were they can do test to see if he has died from any diseases.

“We were so lucky! A kiwi came to Grovetown School. The kiwi was on its way from Christchurch to Motuara Island in the Marlborough Sounds.

Iain and Hayley from DOC told us that there are different kinds of kiwi and there are not many left. They don’t know yet if this kiwi is a boy or girl yet so we are suggesting some unisex names for it. We found out that kiwi are superfast runners and they are related to cassowary birds from Australia.

Iain had his dog with him too. She is a specially trained dog who helps find kiwi.

We thought it was really special meeting a kiwi because not many people ever get the chance.” (Emma and Brooke)

Releasing "Miss Piggy" to her new home.

The rowi team had a huge couple of days catching the birds, and transporting them from Okarito up to Picton.  We’ll hear more from them in a couple days but in the meantime, you can see all about this historical day on TVOne news. Rowi moved to Blumine Island

Rein soaking up the sun

Rein and her handler (me!)  had to complete an interim exam which if passed would allow Rein to accompany the team into the field and start her training on real live kiwi.

Until now she has had to remain at home whenever I ventured into the field, due to the threat an untrained dog poses to our native wildlife.

The exam is three hours long and is designed to test the relationship between dog and handler, Rein’s obedience, manners, fitness and temperament, and the overall control the handler has over the dog.

Rein was required to demonstrate to the assessor some of the commands that she has learnt over the past four months. The commands she will need in the field consist of verbal commands and hand signals for sit, stay, come and stop.  These were tested in a variety of ways including a prolonged stay, out of sight stay and an instant stop. Rein also had to demonstrate that she was comfortable heeling on and off the lead, wearing a muzzle, and also at being transported in a variety of different ways including helicopters, boats, quads, and of course cars.

The hard work put in by Rein over the past four months definitely paid off. She ran, sat, came, stopped, heeled, rode and wore her muzzle with pride. Oh, and she passed too!!

As a reward, she received a shiny new orange collar so she can be seen easily in the bush, then she was taken to Motuara island on her first field trip.  While there, she met her first of hopefully many kiwi and accompanied myself and Hayley all over the island in search of last year’s kiwi chicks for their health checks and transmitter changes.