Kākāriki karaka portraits

I've accumulated plenty of photos of my Little Green Friends that have never seen the light of day. Here are a few.

I would love to know what this guy is thinking (above three photos).

This guy has had some feather depigmentation. Reason unknown, he seems healthy.

This guy was snacking on something in the end of the rotten branch (bugs?) and throwing bits out.

Our symmetrical pair: O-YB and YB-O.

One of our friendliest birds (above). I was having lunch, he popped over to land directly above me when I chatted to him from a distance.

Kārearea nest - about to hatch?

I passed by the kārearea nest again today; as I arrived Fred flew in from the west, perched above the nest and called out repeatedly. I think he was calling for Wilma. Soon afterwards he headed into the nest, then left. My calculations show that the eggs are due to hatch tomorrow (median date based on an estimate of when they started laying).

Kākāriki karaka - missing birds make an appearance

The Department of Conservation maintain a database of the kākāriki karaka: their presence and behaviours. Brook Waimārama Sanctuary volunteers make database entries for any significant sightings of our birds, at feeders, nests, or random sightings. These days we don't bother recording every sighting of a bird as it would involve far too much unnecessary information. We record nest behaviour, and I keep the database moderately up-to-date with the most-recent appearance of birds identified on the feeders. Occasionally a sighting will be added to the database if something significant occurs, e.g., a pair is behaving in a manner suggesting they may be nesting in an area where there are no known nests, or perhaps a bird is detected in a part of the sanctuary where they aren't commonly seen.

Last week Deb Corbett spotted a bird we'd never previously identified while we were descending Kākāriki Spur and identified her by leg bands as O-BG. She had been released into the Brook in our last release of birds in March 2023 and not been seen since she flew out of the aviary. 

A few days later I was processing the feeder-camera images, and spotted another bird, also released in March 2023, and also never seen since. This guy was GV-O, and was making his first ever recorded feeder appearance on the feeder two days before Deb spotted O-BG.

So this was good news! How many other birds were there living in the Brook that we had on the 'missing' or 'undetected' list but had been there all along?

First photo: I spotted O-BG leaving her nest today (yes, she is nesting) right where Deb had spotted her last week. Below that is the first feeder camera image of GV-O.

Kākāriki karaka copulation

Kākāriki karaka are not often photographed or filmed copulating. They can sometimes be seen through the foliage copulating, but have a habit of being reasonably well hidden. I saw this pair today fertilising their next egg and snapped off a few shots. There was foliage between the birds and my camera on the lower right half of the images, so I sharpened the images substantially so they didn't look too smudged out. Hence the somewhat 'hyper-real' appearance.

Kārearea nest - incubation

I was heading down the spur past the kārearea nest today, the male was nest sitting. I watched for a few minutes from the rope on the downhill side of the excluded area and he left the nest, perched on a branch nearby and called out repeatedly. My guess is he'd had enough nest sitting, perhaps was getting hungry, and was calling for his mate. She did not appear in the few minutes I was there (she could have been some distance away, although falcon calls are pretty loud and carry well).

About now I decided to call them Fred and Wilma (Fred Falcon etc).

Fred calling for his mate.