Ranger diary 27 January 2009
By kākāpō ranger Chris Birmingham
One week in kākāpō land is a long time! Since Ruth's last diary entry when Jo, Phil, Ness and I arrived on the island the breeding season has accelerated exponentially as the birds really start to get into the swing of things. In the last week there has been a flurry of matings.
When we arrived here last week, daily triangulations of the breeding age females had just started. This means every day the kākāpō rangers head out and up the hill to radio track the girls and see where they are.
Kākāpō track and bowl
As well as tracking the girls we are also checking track and bowls daily. This could be the most important part of our day, walking up to a 'Snark' to check who has been at the bowl the night before. If a female has been present for a good amount of time then we start looking for mating sign. This is usually close to the bowl and is characterised by a large amount of soft feathers (from the female) pressed into the ground. We'll collect as much of the mating sign as possible for DNA confirmation of parentage and take some photos before moving onto the next bowl for some more hopefully!
This week finding mating sign has been a daily occurrence (for some of us) and every day up the hill is more exciting than the last.
Update:
Since the breeding season began with Lisa and Basil at Christmas time there have been 15 matings from 11 individual females. This means we could be looking for 10 more nests very soon! The combinations so far have been:
- Sue and Blades
- Ellie and Luke (twice)
- Solstice and Felix
- Rakiura with both Whiskas and Barnard
- Nora and Lionel twice
- Margaret Maree and Merv
- Cyndy and Sinbad
- Aranga with both Blades and Lionel
- Flossie and Whiskas
- Heather and Nog (maybe!)
One of the exciting things about this year is that several young birds who hadn't previously bred have got in on the action early. Sisters Aranga and Ellie are both hand-reared birds who mated for the first time this season - both on the same night. Their keenness is exciting.
There are quite a few hand reared birds now so it's great to know they can behave the same as wild raised kākāpō . It's also really encouraging to see the females who bred last year are willing to breed again this year; Rakiura, Lisa, Cyndy and Sue are all in this group.
Watch this space for more exciting news!