Nature's Corner – Bird Life – Mid to Late Spring 2005
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| Male hihi |
Hihi / Stitchbirds (Notiomystis cincta) seem to have found conditions in the Sanctuary very much to their liking and their first breeding season is exceeding expectations. They nested here a month earlier than their friends and relations back on their Tiritiri Matangi Island homeland, and six weeks earlier than hihi on Kapiti Island. By 28 November fifty-one first-clutch chicks had hatched in the Sanctuary. Forty-four have been banded, and thirty-five of those have departed their nests to learn survival skills in the bush. Already there are six second-clutch nests containing in total at least 24 eggs, whereas over on Kapiti Island the hihi are just at the first-clutch stage. We even have three second-clutch chicks, although these followed a failed first clutch for the pair involved.
Naturally there is speculation about the reason for the breeding rush. Has it been stimulated by the opportunity to colonise a new environment with no pre-existing hihi population and a relatively low korimako/bellbird population? What about the range of natural food resources available in the Sanctuary, or the type of supplementary food supplied? Probably all these factors have contributed to some degree.
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| Male hihi Photo by Peter Reese |
Anyone seeking material for a soap opera should join a hihi monitoring group. The males are living up to their ‘Jack the Lad’ reputations. Although pairs have territories around their nest boxes, it’s uncanny how straying males suddenly turn up at other nest areas where females are in the pre-lay period and therefore fertile. How do they know? Is it a case of the roving eye or the roving ear?
An occasional male has developed a more constant relationship and opted for bigamy. But it’s not all fun and no responsibility. Fatherhood includes helping to feed the chicks and, if you have two lots of hungry little mouths to provision, keeping up appearances at both nests must be rather exhausting. Of course some two-family fathers are more conscientious in this respect than others. Take the case of a probable step-dad. While maintaining his original relationship and successful nest, he deposed the male of another established pair with chicks that he then helped his new mate to raise.
A hihi mother has been observed feeding a fledgling from a distant nest that flew in and joined her own newly fledged youngsters. Simply responding to maternal instinct I suppose, although it’s tempting to imagine her being too tired to notice or desperate to stifle its pathetic squeaking. Further observations are needed to reveal whether her behaviour is typical and the extent of communal care for fledglings. Juvenile hihi are known to assemble in crèches for intermediate education.
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| Female korimako |
Five Korimako / Bellbird (Anthornis melanura) pairs are being monitored and all have fledged chicks. Most fledglings are unbanded because nests have been inaccessible to our conservation staff. In two nests second or third clutches of eggs are currently being incubated. A surplus of unattached males creates a stressful situation for breeding pairs, with male partners being challenged and females harassed. We are hoping that the offspring from this breeding season will contribute to a more balanced male-female ratio in our population, but only time will tell.
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| "Smiling" kaka |
The number of known Kaka (Nestor meridionalis) nests increased to seven. Hatching of seventeen chicks has been confirmed and the existence of two or three more is probable. A nest in a natural cavity is the cause of the uncertainty. Very little of the interior can be seen. One chick was observed near the entrance but it is likely that there are others out of sight. All the other nests have been in nest boxes, where it is simply a case of checking the nest during a parental absence to monitor progress and collect the statistics.
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| Male kaka |
Kaka often go foraging outside the Sanctuary and there have been regular sightings in Karori and Highbury as well as occasional reports of birds being seen in Ngaio, Crofton Downs, Aro Valley and Brooklyn. Such reports are especially useful to researchers if the coloured leg bands worn by the birds have been recorded as these identify them individually. However the bands must be recorded in a consistent order if they are to be correctly interpreted. That is, from top to bottom on each leg, starting with the bird’s left leg, followed by a hyphen, and ending with the right. For example, Pink-Yellow Red for a bird with a pink band on its left leg and a yellow band above a red band on its right leg.
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| Miromiro Photo by Peter Russell |
Miromiro / Tomtits (Petroica macrocephala toitoi) seem to like life on the edge. Of four known breeding pairs, all have established territories that straddle the eastern ridgeline and inevitably our pest-proof boundary fence that happens to follow the same ridge. Avian predators can strike anywhere, but nests or roosts outside the fence carry the extra risk of discovery by mammalian predators. Sometimes activity outside the fence can also be difficult or impractical for our staff to monitor.
On 15 October three chicks were banded in the nest that was reported to contain eggs in our last edition. All subsequently fledged. Two of them were sighted outside the Sanctuary with their father about mid-November. The mother has not been seen for a few weeks. We hope that nothing untoward has happened to her, as she and her mate have been our most successful breeding pair. Last year they brought two clutches of chicks through to fledging and they are the only pair that continued through to breed again in the current season.
The first nests of the three other pairs failed when two were predated (one inside and one outside the fence) and the eggs in the third proved infertile. Since then two of these pairs have nested for a second time. One is in such dense trackless scrub outside the Sanctuary that it cannot be monitored, but fortunately the other is inside the Sanctuary and able to be observed. The female is incubating four eggs.
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| Tieke Photo by Peter Reese |
Seventeen breeding pairs of Tieke / Saddlebacks (Philesturnus carunculatus rufusater) have been identified this season, and the existence of an eighteenth pair is suspected. Nine of these pairs are being monitored and by 22 November seventeen chicks had been banded. An elusive eighteenth chick was at large but unbanded, and another five were scheduled for banding within a few days. Eggs are being incubated in a further six known nests.
When visiting the Sanctuary, keep an eye out for tieke fledglings foraging in the company of one or both parents. The fledglings lack the prominent orange-red wattles of the adults. For up to a month after leaving the nest, they follow their parents about, begging for food and gradually learning how to find it for themselves. At first both mum and dad will feed them, but when mum nests again dad becomes the only source of fast food. Their free meals end when he has to help feed a new lot of chicks.
On the weekend of 19-20 November, many visitors walking along Lake Road in the vicinity of the Beech Track junction saw a male tieke caring for his two youngsters. The father was YY-WM who hatched in the Sanctuary in 2003. His mate is OB-WM.* She was already incubating a second clutch of eggs. Last year (their first breeding season) they reared four chicks, all of which entered the breeding population this year. They grow up fast in tieke society.
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| Pateke with three ducklings |
Six new Pateke / Brown Teal (Anas chlorotis) ducklings, attended by both parents, took to the water at the south end of Roto Kawau (the lower lake) on 23 November.
An older female sibling, the sole survivor of an earlier clutch, was still with the parents and the whole family have been feeding together. Big sister also seems to be taking a role in protecting the ducklings and is actively chasing off the mallards. This behaviour has not been seen in the Sanctuary before. Usually adults evict their offspring from the birth territory before or around the time they nest again. Male juveniles are the first to go, seen off the premises by their father. Females are tolerated for longer. Mother is likely to send them packing.
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| Pateke pair with 5 ducklings |
Next door at the Keith Taylor Wetland, the resident female is thought to be re-nesting. Two daughters from the previous clutch were still present but deportation looms. Their brother was booted out some weeks ago.
On Roto Mahanga, the upper lake, seven more ducklings from our most prolific breeding pair have appeared at the southwest arm, and over near the bird-watching hides a new pair seems to have formed. I don’t like to gossip, but … the male of this new union previously produced six ducklings with another partner in late October and was observed hanging around with this younger female while his wife was sitting on the nest! His first wife and family are believed to have moved up the creek and into the bush, but will it be a permanent separation? I’m not sure yet whether to class him as a bigamist or a divorcee. Stop Press: The wife has returned with the ducklings and the girlfriend has been summarily banished.
*Coloured leg bands allow us to identify individual birds for research purposes and are commonly written in an abbreviated form. OB-WM is a bird with an orange band above a blue band on its left leg and a white band above a metal one on its right leg.
This edition of Nature’s Corner Bird News is written by Sanctuary volunteer Allison Buchan and adapted from communications from Sanctuary conservation staff dated 22 November – 1 December 2005. All photographs in this edition, except where indicated, © Karori Wildlife Sanctuary.
Published 7 December 2005.