November 2016

The Tawaki Project field season 2016 is under wraps. At least the part where we crawl through the bush trying to find tawaki nests and recover data loggers from penguin volunteers. That doesn’t mean that there is no fresh data incoming. Because the satellite tags we deployed on tawaki to examine their at-sea movements before the moult will keep on transmitting data until the birds shed their feathers in February.

Gorge River – no penguins breed actually along the river but up the coast from here

Around Gorge River we have probably the highest concentration of tawaki in New Zealand. The birds really seem to like the long stretches of bouldery beaches and the gently sloping forest beyond them. The tangle of bushlawyer, supplejack and kiekie makes for good breeding habitat. Robin Long has conducted several searches in the region over the last few years and has found nest numbers in the order of several hundreds.

One of hundreds of tawaki that call Gorger River their home

And we encountered juvenile tawaki! With short crests, and grey beards they tend to sit around on the beaches or along the penguin highways up into the forest, looking quite unsure as to what they are supposed to do. This is a very good sign for the species, because after the disastrous breeding outcome at Jackson Head due to El Niño last year, one could have expected that none of last year’s chicks made it through the winter migration.

A juvenile tawaki not quite sure about why he’s here and where he’s supposed to be

Over the course of the next weeks we will track the progress of the birds we fitted with satellite tags. It’s nice not to have to wait until we recover the devices to get to the data. Hopefully all of them will return to Gorge River to moult so that we can get the tags back. Otherwise the devices will fall off wherever the penguins decide to gwor some new feathers.

The penguinification of confusion

The rocky shore that is frequented by hundreds of tawaki (except when this image was taken)

A clear night over the Long residence at Gorge River

This Sunday, we went out to Jackson Head once more to have a look whether the setting of several stoat traps in the last active breeding area Popi’s Plaza made a difference for the surivival of the last few remaining tawaki chicks.

Jackson Head in November 2017 – still lots of adults around

When we left in mid-October there were three chicks large enough to be running around freely but small enough to be taken by stoats. At that stage, two stoats had been trapped in this particular breeding area. The traps remained active for a few weeks after we left under the care of DOC Haast.

Stoat attacks stymied – couple of surviving chicks guarded by a male tawaki

The good news is that, yes, all three chicks in Popi’s Plaza are alive and well. They all hang out together under the watchful eye of two adult males. So it seems the trapping did the trick. The problem is, however, that trapping Jackson Head is a logistical nightmare and not really a viable solution for such inaccessible habitat. So we need alternatives…

Fluffy and healthy – and hopefully too big for any stoat

Afternoon snooze