Pīwakawaka - black morph

Pīwakawaka (fantails) seen in New Zealand are commonly the pied morph. In the South Island we see the black morph pīwakawaka reasonably often, they make up about 5% of the species (in the North Island it's more like 1%). Usually they're not exactly 'black', although from a distance can look quite dark. They're more of a chocolate brown.

This one I saw in the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary last weekend was as black as they get, particularly the face. A very hyperactive wee fella, as they commonly are, and it took me one or two hours to get this shot. Naughty bird would not sit still!

Ngirungiru - tomtit

A friendly ngirungiru (tomtit, Petroica macrocephala) is a common encounter in the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary. They're curious and come quite close on occasion. Usually the males. Here are a couple taken over the last few weeks.

By the way, the genus Petroica contains 14 species, and the tomtit is the only one that doesn't contain the name 'robin' in their name. A tomtit is as much a 'robin' as the South Island robin, Black robin, Flame robin etc.

Tūī

It seems to have been a month since my last post, and I have far too many bird photos in store. Perhaps a rainy weekend is needed so I can catch up. In the meantime here are a few tūī photos that I like, all from the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary from the last couple of months.

"You lookin' at my bird?"

Snacking on a juicy-looking coprosma berry. (For the photographers here, these were shot at ISO 64,000.)

Kākāriki karaka - egg gathering

For much of this summer a few of us in the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary kākāriki karaka monitoring team have been searching for parakeet nests that may provide the breeding programme with eggs. In order for the disparate populations of this critically endangered species to maintain healthy genetic diversity there must be some cross breeding between the populations on occasion. The practical way of doing this is to occasionally gather eggs from one population, hatch the eggs and raise the young at Isaac Conservation and Wildlife Trust, the birds will then hopefully breed and their offspring can be translocated to the other populations of this species in New Zealand.

This was going to be a difficult task, as many factors needed to line up. Specifically:-

• The nest needed to contain birds born in the Sanctuary (unbanded birds)
• The nest would ideally be not too far from the Sanctuary fence for quick access to a vehicle for transport to Nelson airport
• The nest must be reachable through climbing by rope and jumars
• The nest bowl should be accessible from the entrance (so eggs could be removed with a scoop by the person up the tree)
• The nest must contain eggs, once the eggs have hatched it would be too late
• The eggs should be a similar age to eggs laid by an infertile pair at Isaac so the female's infertile eggs could be swapped for the fertile eggs.

Given all the above, I was in the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary on Saturday weekend before last looking for a new nest or two. One commonly-used nest site had not been recently checked since its last use (the previous nest fledged mid-January). I decided to check this one out, as it ticked all the boxes for easy egg retrieval (only 4m off the ground, and a nest bowl level with the entrance for easy egg removal, also only 20 minutes walk from one of the fence access points). Rather than spend an hour or two watching the hole for signs of activity, I decided to attach my mobile phone to a stick with rubber bands, set the video recording, and look for signs of activity in the nest. The video quality was very poor (completely out of focus), but voila! I saw eggs. A glimpse of the green feathers of one of our special rare parakeets was also clear. Here's a still from the video. I guessed at least five eggs. 

So I did a 'proper' nest watch. This involved watching the nest hole and waiting for the male to arrive and call the female off the nest for a feed (or any kind of activity at the nest). About 45 minutes later he arrived as expected, called out, she was out in a flash, and obviously hungry. That's her on the right. Note the feather loss on her chest, that's her brood patch.

Her feather loss is more apparent here, note the bare skin. This is to allow direct skin-to-egg contact for incubation, the eggs need to be kept at body temperature.

Also note the swollen cloaca, she's been recently laying.

After her feed, she nibbled on bark (and/or bugs?) for a few minutes then back into her nest.

Anyway, that all added up to a very good opportunity for egg retrieval. An unbanded pair, using an accessible nest, not far off the ground, with an accessible nest bowl, recent laying, and proof of eggs in the nest. So I emailed the information to the Department of Conservation Orange-Fronted Parakeet Recovery team. They had a meeting on Monday, and on Tuesday two of their crew drove from Rangiora to Nelson to collect some eggs from this nest.

On Wednesday the DoC crew roped the tree, climbed up and inspected the eggs. [The tree had been strung on a previous visit, this is achieved with a slingshot and fishing reel. The sinker is fired over a branch above the nest. When it's time to climb the tree, a rope is pulled up by the string.] The eggs were candled (shining a light through to observe developmental stage); it was concluded the five eggs were 5 to 15 days old. This was four days after my mobile-phone-on-a-stick nest inspection, suggesting the eggs were 1 to 11 days old at the time.

On Thursday the DoC crew and a few other helpers (including me) visited again to retrieve the eggs. Initially Megan (DoC) climbed the tree to see if the female was in the nest (she was).

Preparing to jumar up the rope and inspect the nest.

Megan is at the nest entrance.

Then we waited for the male to arrive and call his mate off the nest for a feed. It is much safer to extract eggs with the female absent, eggs may become broken while attempting to take them out from under a brooding female. Unfortunately the male was not as cooperative this time as he was during my watch five days earlier. We waited. And waited. At one stage a kākāriki karaka landed in the mid-canopy near the nest entrance, but made no attempt to call off the female. Given where he landed it's very likely it was the male from the nest. Then he flew off.

At 11am the decision was made to climb the tree and attempt egg extraction with the female on the nest. We had been waiting for almost three hours. The eggs needed to be at Nelson airport by about 2pm and time was running out. Megan climbed the tree and attempted to extract the eggs.

Megan has moved off to the right of the nest entrance (the obvious slit in the trunk) as the female on several occasions appeared perhaps ready to leave the nest. She didn't.

After a few minutes up the tree and no success removing an egg from the nest, the male turned up! He landed on a branch a metre behind Megan briefly, then moved to the canopy five or so metres away. Our job suddenly changed. Our best option now was to be as small and quiet as possible and let the male call the female out of the nest. It had been over three hours (at least) since her last feed and she would definitely be hungry. Megan remained up the tree but the other humans on the ground stepped back to give the birds some space. Immediately the female came out and disappeared with her mate.

Megan shines a torch on a wire into the nest cavity.

Megan then inserts a scoop into the nest cavity. Success. She transfers an egg into her hand then closes her hand gently but securely. She then transfers the egg to a container with cotton wool.

The container with the egg is put in a sack and sent down string on a pulley to the ground for immediate transfer to somewhere warm. In this case a human chest to maintain the egg at body temperature.

Megan arrived back on the ground after 52 minutes up the tree.

Mission accomplished. The last hour was a tense time for all. Mishaps must be avoided with this precious cargo. We were in a hurry by then, so the eggs were carried up the hill kept warm against human chests. This allowed faster transit. Upon arrival at the vehicle, the eggs were transferred to the incubator for the slow drive down a very bumpy 4WD track to the main road, then to the airport just in time for transport to Christchurch, then to Isaac. The inspection showed healthy, undamaged eggs, and by 6pm they were under the care of their infertile kākāriki karaka foster parent Daisy. The humans have done their job, now it's up to Daisy (and her mate) to finish the task and turn the eggs into fledglings and raise them to adulthood. They will then be genetically tested and in following seasons their genes will hopefully have propagated to other kākāriki karaka populations in New Zealand.

Kiwi pukupuku

Forty one kiwi pukupuku (little spotted kiwi) were taken from a large population on Kapiti Island and reintroduced to the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary in May 2025. They used to be everywhere but have been locally extinct for close to 100 years. I haven't written about them in this blog to date as I had no photos! They're nocturnal, and spend the daytime extremely well hidden in burrows, under logs, or in dense vegetation.

Ten of the males were radio-tracked. This was to allow personnel from Save the Kiwi, the Department of Conservation and the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary to monitor their movements throughout the Sanctuary following their translocation. They were also periodically examined so their health could be monitored. The signs were always good, they quickly spread out and established their territories. They put on weight. Trail-cameras were installed at key locations and they were regularly filmed going about their business. The first Sanctuary-born chick was also picked up by trail-camera in December 2025 (seven months after the translocations).

It was decided that the transmitters were to be removed and not replaced. They had done their job and there was no longer any purpose in tracking those ten birds.

Last weekend two teams involving personnel from Save the Kiwi worked with Brook staff and volunteers to locate the ten monitored kiwi, remove the transmitters, and after one final health check release them back into their burrows. I was lucky enough to accompany and photograph one of the teams on Sunday, we had three kiwi to find. Here are some photos from the day. I usually avoid having humans in my photos, but humans were integral to this story so they appear here too.

Kiwi No. 1.

Robert, the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary ecologist, and Nadine from Save the Kiwi have radio trackers, and have quickly triangulated to a suspicious-looking hole in the bank. Henry (Brook staff) gets ready for action.

Robert thinks our bird may be in this hole.

Yep! There he is.

His transmitter is removed, he is then weighed and other measurements made (beak length) and a quick check for general health. As a kiwi amateur, he looks perfectly healthy to me! And seriously cute.

However, while retrieving this kiwi from his burrow, Robert thought he detected something else in there. So he set his phone to record video and had a closer look.

Correct again! If you're wondering what Robert and Nadine are smiling about, look closely at the phone. It's a kiwi chick! A happy moment for everyone.

Kiwi No. 2.

Signals from our next bird's transmitter led us further up the hill. A large log covered in old fern leaves became the target. Nadine and Robert are pretty sure our bird is under there somewhere, but he's not been spotted yet. Everyone is whispering and being as quiet as possible, we don't want the kiwi to be spooked and bolt. This is an intense time in the search.

Henry guards a possible entrance on the other side of the log (the side closer to me), and uses red torchlight hoping to spot the bird (he does).

Nadine moved to her right (my left) and fell over. I thought she'd tripped on a branch or root. Wrong! She came up holding a kiwi. Her 'fall' was in fact a dive to grab our bird as he was attempting an escape. Well done!

First up, the transmitter-liberation moment.

He gets a clean bill of health.

Both these birds were done by lunch time. Now onto Kiwi No. 3.

We did a fair bit of bush-bashing for our final bird, he wasn't where he was expected to be. It took a couple of hours to hone in on his location. Henry had a radio tracker this time and led us to this mamaku. The team surrounded the mamaku and Robert got the bird.

Again, this kiwi had a clean bill of health.

Back into the mamaku he went. It seems he didn't feel terribly safe though (not as safe as under a log or in a burrow) so he popped out the other side and scampered off into the bushes. We quickly left him alone to find somewhere cosy to finish his day's sleep.

We headed back to base after a 100% successful mission. It took about eight hours. It took three days for the two teams to locate all ten kiwi and remove their transmitters (that was a good outcome, five days had been put aside for the job). That was the last time they'll ever need to be handled by humans, from now on they - and their offspring - will live their lives as free, wild birds in their fenced sanctuary safe from predators. Welcome home, birdies!

Kākāriki karaka - more portraits

I never turn down an opportunity to photograph my favourite birds in the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary, so here are a few portraits from last visit on Sunday.

No, he's not holding his nose because he's about to sneeze, he's eating a sunflower seed from his hand... I mean claw.

Nice light for these next few.

Warou - fly-by feeding

After a day in the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary on Sunday, I spotted a couple of warou (welcome swallow) fledglings perched on the electrified wire on top of the predator-proof fence. (The fence is the Sanctuary's most important asset, as without it there is no Sanctuary.)

Anyway, I was watching one of the fledglings through the lens, and it suddenly turned to the left with mouth wide open, indicating a parent was likely a few seconds away with a juicy bug in its mouth. That particular feeding visit didn't give me any particularly good shots, so I waited. Warou feeding visits are usually every few minutes. The parent(s) go searching for a bug, usually grabbed while airborne, then they return and feed it directly to one of their hungry offspring.

Here is another feeding visit a few minutes later, this one was my favourite. There was a strong wind blowing from the right so the parent didn't need to land.