Kākāriki karaka - more nests

The kākāriki karaka at the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary are a little later than usual with nesting this year, but seem to have begun in earnest. Here are a couple of nests observed over the last week or two.

Here the male is in a tree about 4m to the left, and has called for his mate, letting her know he's home and has a tummy full of food for her. She must be hungry as out she comes for a feed. They then flew off for a few minutes (perhaps to a creek for a drink and/or bath) and 15 minutes after she left she's back in her nest.

Another nest. Here the male is in a tree about 5m from his nest hole. He calls for his mate, but she doesn't initially make an appearance.

So he flies over to the nest and calls for her from the entrance. Then out she comes.

She dives out to meet her mate who has gone back into the canopy of the tree a few metres from the nest. Note the prominent brood patch, clear evidence she is currently incubating. She has lost her stomach feathers which allows her to directly transfer heat to her eggs.

Begging for food, then being fed.

Then back into her nest to continue egg sitting. Incubation takes about three weeks, but she could spend more time on the job if she has a large clutch.

We'll be keeping an eye on most of the nests we discover, and try to find more. Kākāriki karaka tend to nest in sync with one another (synchronised behaviour and/or responding to the same biological triggers) so if there are a few nests, there will be many more. Finding more nests requires patience and persistence. We have looked at other potential nest sites over the last few weeks (and longer), some were active and some were not. We'll check the inactive sites a few more times this season.

Riroriro - grey warbler

As I was walking back down the hill yesterday after visiting a pīpīwharauroa above our house (see below post) I was greeted by quite a few male riroriro (grey warbler, a.k.a. grey gerygone) performing their delightfully-musical territorial calls. I spent an hour or two in two different places with two different birds, and took about 1000 photos of them. I deleted most on first pass, then went through the survivors and culled a few more. I imported even fewer into Lightroom, and ended up with 21 keepers that I put through my usual process. Here are a few of them.

Pīpīwharauroa - shining cuckoo

Last summer I was up the hill on our property about 1km above the house, and heard the familiar regular, high-pitched begging calls of a pīpīwharauroa nestling or fledgling, so I went looking for it. I first saw a few pīwakawaka (fantails), nope, not them. Then a riroriro (grey warbler), getting closer! Then a few seconds later a pīpīwharauroa fledgling begging incessantly for dinner. Every half minute or so a bug was stuffed down its gullet by one of its riroriro foster parents. I had no camera with me so I watched for a minute or two and left.

Last week I was up the hill and heard plenty of pīpīwharauroa and riroriro, some not far from where I saw the fledgling last year. So yesterday I went up the hill again with my camera, and within half a minute there was a noisy pīpīwharauroa in the sun calling out (for a mate, I guess). It spent a bit of time preening and hopping from tree to tree making the familiar call. Could it have been mum or dad from last year? Or the grown-up fledgling? Seems likely it was one of them given how close it was to where I previously saw the fledgling. Either way, the bird would have had an 8000km round trip since last summer to the Solomon Islands / Bismarck Archipelago and back. Anyway, welcome home, little birdie!

Kākāriki karaka - nesting time

It's spring, and that's when the kākāriki karaka in the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary usually begin nesting. A few may have nested over the winter, but spring - summer - autumn is their normal breeding season.

The Brook kākāriki karaka team confirmed our first nest for the season in the Upper Valley a couple of weeks ago, and have been checking out popular nestholes from previous seasons for activity. We've also checked out a few hot tips from other Brook volunteers, including one in Weka Block. A volunteer noticed a pair of our birds checking out a hole in a tree above his monitoring line last August, and we had a look on a couple of occasions since. Although there was activity nearby, and in the canopy of the target tree, no birds had been seen going into the hole.

So yesterday I had another look and about twenty minutes after I arrived a pair arrived in silence, munched some scale insects (presumably) on a branch near the target cavity, looked at the hole from a couple of metres away, and generally showed interest in the hole.

Here is the male of the pair looking at the hole, a 50cm high slot in the trunk.

A minute later the female was also peering into the cavity.

Then into the hole.

A minute later the male left quietly, and she was in the hole for 17 minutes or so, then she poked her head out and followed her mate. It's a good sign they will nest here, the male seemed to realise that when she went in she was going to be in there for a while and chose not to hang around. And when she left she knew where the male had gone and followed him. This stage of a nest is called 'nest preparation'. She'll be scratching around inside and preparing a good surface for laying and incubating eggs. Egg laying is likely to happen in the next week or two (if it hasn't happened already). At this stage we call it a 'potential nest'. When it becomes pretty clear that there is at least one egg in there (if we see a swollen cloaca, or she is clearly incubating) then we confirm the nest in the database.

Kākāriki karaka - A special bird named Floyd

A reminder on the background of the first kākāriki karaka translocated into the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary in 2021-2022: The birds were mostly raised at the Isaac Conservation and Wildlife Trust, with some also from Orana Wildlife Park and a few from Auckland Zoo. Most birds were a few months old when translocated; they were juveniles ready to spread their wings and claim new territory once given their freedom. A few were older birds who for one reason or another were being released into the wild. Perhaps they didn't form pairs and breed as was expected of them. Perhaps they didn't get on well with other members of their species in their aviary. Perhaps they were surplus males so couldn't be paired. Etc.

A quick note on life expectancy of kākāriki karaka. They've been known to live over 10 years in captivity. The oldest current living bird is 14, and in one case a bird almost reached 17. In original beech forest without predators (the Brook), who knows? [A principal reason for continuing to monitor our translocated birds (the birds with leg bands) is to ultimately calculate the life expectancy of this species.] Over the years some birds we commonly see don't return to feeders in spring, or don't return to their old nest holes ready for another season of breeding. Generally that means we won't be seeing them again i.e, they've probably passed away for one reason or another at several years old.

Anyway, the oldest bird translocated to the Brook was KV-S (left leg blacK over Violet - right leg Silver) but for the first few years of his life at Orana Wildlife Park he was known as Floyd. He was born about June 2018 and for his first year was paired up with a female named Fern, they bred successfully. He subsequently stopped breeding so at about 3.5 years old the decision was made to give him his freedom in the Brook. He quickly paired up with S-PW and they formed a nest. Unfortunately in February 2022 (a few months after translocation of the first birds in November/December 2021) we had a major rain event: 400mm over three days, and three of the eight nests we were following were abandoned (leaky-building syndrome)! Floyd and S-PW's nest was one of them. Our last watch of his nest indicated it was empty. S-PW poked her head in a few times, but she was clearly no longer nest-bound. Floyd made an appearance in the canopy, but made no attempt to contact S-PW at her nest as he would have known she wasn't there.

Two weeks later (5th March 2022) I went back to the vicinity of his nest in an attempt to find Floyd and S-PW prospecting (scoping out the territory nearby for a new nest hopefully). I found Floyd perched in a beech tree nearby chatting loudly: Still upset about the loss of his nest? Calling for his mate S-PW? Announcing himself as king of the forest? Who knows. Here's the last photo I took of him (with my old camera) and the last time anyone saw him.

Over the next months/years it became clear that he was one of the 'gone missing' birds who will probably never be seen again. [We do get the occasional surprise with a visit from a bird on this 'missing' list, where a bird not seen (either in person or detected on a feeder trailcam) turns up without warning 6-12 months after their last appearance. This didn't happen with Floyd.]

Until yesterday.

Precisely 3.5 years after I saw Floyd for the last time, I was walking along one of our monitoring lines (about 170m from where I last saw Floyd in March 2022) with a heavy load (camera not ready) and heard parakeet chatter above the track. I saw a pair feeding in the canopy. I also saw what seemed to be a leg band, so out came the camera as I wanted to know which of our birds was living here. I guessed it could be BG-S (who lives in the vicinity and is detected perhaps once per year). Or VO-S who also nests nearby, is seen more regularly, but can remain undetected for six months or more. Incorrect guesses, it was Floyd! I'm not often gobsmacked in the Brook, but this day I was. I must have quietly muttered "NFW!" twenty times while flicking through my photos not believing what I was seeing.

It took some time and quite a few photos to get the ID, first a silver band, then bare legs on the other bird. Here is one of the first shots of the pair, that's Floyd on the right (the silver band on his right leg is visible if you zoom in), and his unbanded mate on the left. Note that only one or two of the four legs are visible; identifying birds from underneath is notoriously difficult for that reason.

Floyd kindly hopped a little forward (he's now in the middle of the above photo) where his left leg bands are clearly visible. I'd already seen his silver band, but this shot removed all doubt as to which bird he was.

Floyd is 7.2 years old, looking healthy for his age!

So, the question (that will never be answered) is: what has he been doing and where has he been for the last 3.5 years? Did he go somewhere else (where we don't spend much time) and has decided to return to his home?

I think it's more likely Floyd has been here all along, and has been undetected for so long as he has little curiosity in those large bipeds passing below. He ignores the annual kākāriki karaka population counts (where we try to call in all the birds using playback and count them). He gets on with his life, feeding and nesting in his home territory. He has probably raised two broods per year (maybe more). He will likely have quite a few kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, great-great-grandkids etc. After 3.5 years in captivity he has now spent the next 3.8 years in original beech forest safe from mammalian predators.

It is worth mentioning here that for Floyd's 3.5 years in captivity his diet consisted of food (fruit and seeds etc) placed in his aviary by humans. He was also trained on auto-feeders (that distribute sunflower seed and/or parakeet pellets on a timer). Auto-feeders (with trail-cams recording all avian visitors) are subsequently placed near the release point for translocated birds to use while they become accustomed to finding their own natural food. The feeders also assist with grounding the birds to their new location; we want them to decide their new home is a good one and that they don't need to go too far (over the fence) in search of food.

Floyd never set foot on a feeder once released into the Brook, not even once. Everything he has eaten since release has been food he found himself. Floyd's unwillingness to breed also ended shortly after his release into the Brook. Floyd was clearly destined to be feeding, breeding and living as a wild, free bird from the moment of his release from captivity. Live long and prosper, Floyd!

Kākāriki karaka - spring is coming

I had a look in the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary yesterday for signs of nest prospecting in our kākāriki karaka population. I saw a few pairs feeding in the canopy, and on a couple of occasions were peering into potential nest holes. A volunteer I met during the day mentioned he had seen one of a pair entering a hole in a beech tree. Nest prospecting can last for quite some time (a few weeks to a few months) before the biological trigger for egg laying becomes apparent.

In the meantime, some photos of my little green friends from yesterday. Lighting was rather harsh (patchy sunlight and deep shade), I tried an experiment with underexposing and correcting in post. I kinda like the outcome, not sure about the bokeh in the fourth photo though, nice for a change but I would not like it like that all the time.

Fischer's Eggs - part 2

I visited the Fischer's Egg Farm (see below post) again yesterday, six days after my previous visit. In the interim the site had been subject to some Fischer's Egg tourism! Plenty of Brook Waimārama Sanctuary volunteers were keen to see and/or photograph these rare fungi.

It was interesting to see what effect time had had on them. The first photo below is copied from my previous post. The second is the same three eggs but six days later. Note the one on the right was in much more of a hurry to escape its shell than the lower one.

This one is about the size of a marble. Note that it has completely detached from its shell (above it) and rolled down the hill.

Looks like a bunch of fruiting bodies all growing on top of one another.

It would be tempting to dig around here and see what it looks like underground (of course I didn't). That's likely exactly what a pig would have done if they'd been allowed. There would be a pile of overturned soil and we could only guess at what tasty morsels had been eaten. I could imagine a pig destroying a patch of 20+ Fischer's Eggs in a few minutes.

Fischer's Eggs

I have a lot of eggs in this post, but no birds eggs! Fischer's Egg fungi are endangered, and only found in a couple of places in New Zealand. They're also found in Tasmania. A Fischer's Egg is the fruiting body of the Claustula genus of fungi, the rest of the organism exists below ground. The first one found in the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary since the sanctuary became pest-free was in 2020; more examples have been found in the Sanctuary since then. This genus may be benefitting (perhaps greatly) from the earlier removal of browsing ungulates, although that is not certain. 

In July 2021, sanctuary-volunteer Wayne Hennessy found one on a minor spur on a monitoring line I commonly walk. The following week I inspected it on my way past. Every visit since then I've looked at that spot for another fruiting event. A little over two years later (October 2023) I saw an egg in exactly the same spot.

In June this year (2025) during the kākāriki karaka population count, I was walking the line again with sanctuary employee Henry Hart and showed him where those two eggs had grown; there was no egg, but Henry promptly found one half a metre above that spot!

Last weekend I was passing that spot again, and quickly found five more Fischer's Eggs. Two on the track, and the other three a couple of metres below the track. Given how quickly I found them without trying, I guessed there could be plenty more nearby up and down the spur.

So yesterday I bush-bashed down the spur towards the eggs I'd found last week, and found a large patch of them about 100m above last week's find. I could count about 27 without moving my feet; there were about 29 in that patch. Then I continued down the spur finding one more on the way and arrived at the ones I'd found last week. I found about 12 more nearby. So 42 new Fischer's Eggs; not bad for a morning's work. Here are a few of them.

A few 'hatched' eggs in good condition. Note the remains of the 'shell' (the pink/brown skin that initially enclosed the egg).

A few older eggs beginning to decay.

This one still enclosed in the 'skin'.

An early-stage one pushing the soil aside.

A couple of unusually-shaped eggs. Note two more either hatching or about to hatch in the second photo. The one in the last photo is about the size of a small fist.