Kākāriki karaka - nests fledging

Today I checked out last week's new kākāriki karaka nest (see post from March 9th 2025 below) expecting it to have fledged. It had. The nest hole appeared empty. In order to enter the nest into the DOC database as 'successful' I would need some evidence of success, e.g., fledgling seen near nest, fledgling seen with parent(s) etc.

Half an hour after I arrived, an adult appeared in the canopy with a squeaky young fledgling. They were in the same tree that the adult male used as his 'arrival' tree last week. That was evidence of success; there was good reason to believe that the adult and fledgling just seen were from this nest. I took no photos of them as they were obscured high in the canopy. But, mission accomplished. Here's another photo of two of the nestlings (there were at least four in there) in their nest last week.

So, onto the next nest. This one was on the aptly-named Kākāriki Spur. It had been watched two days ago, the male had been seen feeding nestling(s) at the nest entrance, and the nest was likely to fledge soon (in fact the predictor on the database had today down as likely fledging day, although that can easily be out by a week or more). So I decided to check it out.

Nothing happened for the first 40 minutes or so (no surprise there). Then an adult and a fledgling (perhaps two) turned up in the canopy of the nest tree, then departed. They were perhaps from this nest? About 20 minutes later an adult and two fledglings (perhaps the same ones) landed in the canopy nearby, the fledglings sounded pretty young. I immediately heard begging calls coming from the nest and saw a tiny head appear at the nest entrance. (This nest is a long way up the tree and not great for watching from the ground or photography.) Anyway, there was a time when there was communication back-and-forth between the nestling and the fledglings (or perhaps just one of them). The nestling would call, then a fledgling would reply from the tree they were flicking around in 15m away, then the nestling again. Call and response. I could only imagine what they might be saying.....

"I'm lonely in here, please come home!"

"Come on out, this flying thing is tricky, but it's fun!"

"But it's a long way down and I'm scared.... and I'm hungry."

It seemed highly likely that the adult was PB-S (the male from this nest) and the fledglings had recently flown from the nest; the bird still in the nest would of course be their sibling. Shortly afterwards I identified PB-S from his leg bands. So another successful nest.

At one stage the noisy trio landed 1-2m from the nest entrance and hopped around for a while. Their nest-bound sibling chatted constantly, probably asking for food. The food stored in Dad's stomach was so close but that two metres of empty space between the nestling and its family was just too far for a bird yet to take its first flight. For the hour and a half I was watching this nest the dad offered no food to the nestling. This would likely have provided further encouragement to the nestling to spread its wings and "come and get it".

A poor photo below, but the beak of the nestling is visible at the entrance of the nest hole at the centre of the photo. The nest is about 15-20m off the ground. The trio at one stage were hopping around on those branches behind, and in lighter foliage to the left of the nest entrance.

The fledglings were already pretty good fliers; they spent most of their time in the upper canopy with no trouble maintaining altitude, even though my guess is they had been out of their nest for less than a day. They made plenty of clumsy landings though (ending up upside down with wings tangled in the foliage). The nestling looked a bit younger than its siblings, perhaps it needs another day or two before it joins its family.

In the photo below, PB-S (the dad) on the right watches me while one of his clumsy fledglings chatters to him ("I'm hungry", or "Can we stop now?" etc.)

So, now on to my final nest watch of the day. This nest had been last watched five weeks ago, and was due for a check-up. Half an hour after I arrived, the male arrived, landed at the nest entrance, the female popped her head out (photo below), they flew into the foliage a few metres from the nest entrance, he fed her, then three minutes later she went back into her nest. She likely has hatchlings (a few days old). A more routine nest watch than the previous one, but more evidence that our precious birds are having another good breeding season.