Brook Waimārama Sanctuary volunteers, staff, and Department of Conservation staff (most participants were DOC staff as many Brook volunteers were overseas) performed our annual kākāriki karaka population count using playback (see 2023-07-22 post on last year's population count for methodology).
Day 1 was overcast, a bit of drizzle perhaps, and birds were a bit quiet, we counted 170-odd birds. Day 2 was sunny and we counted (raw data) 240+ birds. This was considered a very good outcome. The birds were not particularly interested in our playback, few came in to check out the source of the recorded kākāriki karaka calls. Perhaps many of them remembered it from last year. Perhaps they just weren't interested in yet another bird calling about nothing in particular. What was clear is that most of the birds counted were detected in between playback points, i.e., something closer to random sightings. It would be reasonable to assume that we missed quite a few more birds than were counted twice. Almost all of the birds detected were unbanded (born in the sanctuary), although the band status of many of the detected birds was unclear (i.e., their legs were not seen). All up, a case could be made for the population being significantly higher than 240. Clearly we had substantial year-on-year population growth again, 40% would be a reasonable estimate again.
Some unbanded kākāriki karaka detected during the population count yesterday and today.
While the bird news was great, our joy was tempered by the knowledge that half of the DOC Kākāriki Karaka Recovery Programme staff we'd got to know over the years (including half the staff involved with the current count) are to fall victim to heavy budget cuts next month and are being laid off. This is likely to be the last time we'd be working with many of them in the Brook.
