What some of the WHLF monitored kiwi have been up to in September:

New kiwi named Jackie’s Boy – You may remember that an adult male kiwi called “Spratt” was killed by a dog at the Nook a couple of months ago. Todd was checking Spratt’s female mate “Jackie” earlier this month and found her cuddled up in a pampas bush with a new mate who the landowners has named “Jackie’s Boy”. It is always exciting to find new wild kiwi at the Heads because it is a good indication that our stoat trapping is protecting the kiwi chicks.

Whitu - wins the prize for hatching the first chick for the monitored kiwi at the Heads this year. His transmitter indicates that his chick hatched on 23 September. His nest is on the face of Mt Aubrey above the Reotahi carpark and we will leave him in alone for a week or so – his activity is still only around 2 hours per night according to the transmitter so he may well be on a second egg.

Lambert – last year’s “dad of the year” has hatched his first chick of the season on 24 September (piped by 1 day by Whitu) at Taurikura Ridge.

Xmas – was briefly nesting for 12 days in the horse paddock at McLeods but gave up on the nest. To hatch a kiwi egg needs to be incubated by the dad for around 75 days but DoC studies show that only 50% of kiwi eggs naturally make it through to hatch. The good news for Xmas is that there is plenty of time for him to have another go at nesting this spring and if we get summer rain many of the Kiwi can have two nests in a season.

Darwin – although Darwin is a mature male he hasn’t nested since being released in 2006 and seems to prefer bachelor life in the pampas at the end of Lamb road.

Waka – is a juvenile kiwi from our BNZONC programme. He was hatched in Purua 12 months ago and we transferred him to Limestone Is. Jo and Ben Barr (the Limestone Is rangers) found him in one of their Petrel nests and he had grown to 1300g – big enough to come back to the mainland. He was released on 18 September at Taurikura Ridge (see release story). Waka has settled into the pine forest on the eastern side of Taurikura Ridge. Welcome to the Heads Waka.

Violet has moved up the eastern side of Mt Aubrey by Bay View road.

King is still being elusive somewhere on the Kauri Mountain coastline and hopefully he and his transmitter signal will turn up again soon .