Cougar Line & Kiwi Conservation

Kapiti Male closes the season with yet another chick

The first of Helen’s two field season’s studying little spotted kiwi out on Long Island is just coming to a close. On her most recent trip, Helen caught all the birds she still has tagged out there and changed their transmitters to keep track of them until the start of her next field season in June. Happily, the timing of the trip coincided with the hatching of the last chick of the season in the nest of the original founding male for the island, “Kapiti Male”. The chick, called Snuffles, is at least the second to be hatched by this male this season (and possibly the third) and was a very late arrival – little spotted kiwi hatching is normally finished by the end of February at the latest.

Snuffles (who was around four days old when these pictures were taken) and his dad seemed to be in fine health. Helen was able to take DNA samples from the new arrival for her genetic work as well as fit a new tag to Kapiti Male so that she can monitor him next season and see if he can match this years’ nesting success! We’ll be keeping you up to date with all the news once Helen’s next field season kicks off so stay tuned for more kiwi chick action.

Founding father nesting again

Helen managed to dodge the “weather bomb” this weekend and get out to Long Island for another little spotted kiwi monitoring trip.

Most of the kiwi she’s following on the island seem to have finished nesting for the season, but the original founding male “Kapiti Male” is incubating his second clutch of the year. While other birds on the island have also incubated two clutches, this is the latest start to incubation Helen has yet encountered. It’s especially interesting because this bird has already produced at least one chick back in October. That chick, Ellis, was the first chick in the study to hatch this year and there will be quite a big gap between hatching events if this nest is also successful.

Monitoring of all the birds in Helen’s study will be continuing over the next few months in the run up to her second field season, which begins in June this year. We’ll have all the news on Kapiti Male’s second nest and any other kiwi findings, so keep checking back here for more.

Long Island produces more kiwi chicks

Helen and her team just returned from another monitoring trip with the exciting news that she found three more kiwi chicks on Long Island. That’s four so far from the 10 birds she’s monitoring this year. The chicks, called Pebble, Robin and Iraiti were all weighed, measured and sampled for DNA before being returned safely to their nests to begin their lives on the island.

In an interesting turn of events, some of the birds that had abandoned their eggs on her previous visit were found to be having another go on new nests so there might be hope for a few more chicks yet. Keep checking back here for all the latest kiwi updates!

Meet Tim Tam the kiwi

On a recent trip to Long Island, Helen and her team were lucky enough to come across an extra kiwi for her study. He’s been named Tim Tam and you can see some pictures of him here.

Untagged kiwi are pretty tricky to find so it was fortunate that Helen had Rogan Colbourne from DOC and his specially trained kiwi dog Abbie with her. They found Tim Tam in a nest box incubating an egg. Sadly the egg has turned out to be infertile, but every new bird found on the island gives Helen more information about the population there.

We’re sure you’ll agree that Tim Tam is a pretty handsome bird. Helen will be following him right through to the end of February so we’ll be able to update you on his progress on these pages.

First kiwi chick of the year on Long Island

Fantastic news from Helen’s latest trip to Long Island – one of the birds radio tagged for her study has successfully hatched a chick – the first of the year for the birds in the study.

The proud father is the Kapiti Male – one of the original founders of the Long Island population and one of the oldest known little spotted kiwi in existence. Although his precise age isn’t known, this bird is at least 30 years old. That hasn’t stopped hatching a very cute little chick though.

Helen will be returning to Long Island later this month to check up on the nests for the other birds she’s monitoring and, as always, we’ll be supporting her work. Check back here or call into the office for more kiwi chick updates!

Kiwi eggs on Long Island

We’re continuing our support of Helen Taylor, a PhD student at Victoria University of Wellington, in conserving little spotted kiwi on Long Island. After her most recent trip to Long, Helen had some exciting news – at least seven of the birds she is tracking on the island are currently incubating eggs. Using a burrow scope at night when the kiwi were away from their nests, Helen was able to peek inside and get some photos of the eggs with an infrared camera.

We’ll have to wait and see how many of the birds manage to successfully hatch a chick – keep checking back here or call into our booking office for the latest news!