Birds of Christchurch and Canterbury

Hi, everyone-

Tui monitoring has kicked off again, and we’re off to a very good start
- just yesterday, after many hours of searching, monitors Steve and
Ursula found an active tui nest at Otanerito. Although it is not
possible to see into the nest, evidence points to it being early in the
nestling stage; they are hearing soft peeping when the female leaves the
nest, but she is still spending long periods on the nest, brooding the
suspected chicks. Needless to say, it’s a very exciting and encouraging
find! The male of the pair is believed to be Hughey, but we’re still not
confident about the identity of the female just yet. She’s spending most
of her time sitting on the nest, and is quite sneaky when she pops off
for a feed, but we’ll let you know when she’s identified. The tui
monitors are also working on another two locations at Otanerito where
they suspect females may be sitting on nests, so there may be more to
come; they will also, of course, monitor activity at the already-found
nest as closely as possible without disturbing the birds. From next
week, Steve and Ursula will be joined by Lincoln summer scholar Karen,
who will probably focus her efforts on chasing up sightings on the
Akaroa side of the hill.

Over the last month, several tui have continued to regularly visit Brian
and Faye Narbey’s feeders, as well as a variety of flowering plants in
their and nearby gardens. Positively-identified tui seen since
mid-October include Toa, Hughey, Kopata, Boeing, Rudolf Steiner, Scion,
Anzac and The Vicar, all in Long Bay. Manu was caught on camera feeding
on Lighthouse Road flax flowers by a resident. On yesterday’s visit to
Otanerito I also spotted one new bird whose identity isn’t certain
because a colour band has gone missing from the right leg. Based on the
remaining bands, however, and the fact that it’s likely to be a female
(the type of band used on females is far easier to remove), I suspect
this mystery bird is Tumanako. She is one of the three birds who hasn’t
been sighted since release (she did not have a transmitter, either) so
if it does turn out to be her that will be more good news.

Tui have recently been sighted further up in Hinewai (Murderers Gully),
in Stony Bay, and at the very top of Robinsons Bay Valley Road. Further
afield, we continue to get scattered sightings from the Akaroa area,
including locations along Woodills Road, Rue Grehan, Muter Street,
Watson Street, Lighthouse Road and Ngaio Point. After a winter busy with
tui activity, the Glen Bay area went quiet in early spring. However, in
the last week or so at least one bird has been returning on occasion to
sing. In general, the birds on the harbour side of the hill appear to be
relatively unsettled, so Karen will certainly have her work cut out for
her!

Our main goals for the summer are to:

-locate as many tui as we can, and determine what areas they’re using

-detect any territorial behaviour

-find, monitor, and if possible protect any nesting attempts

-band as many fledgling tui as possible to help us monitor their
survival and overall population growth

As has been the case from day one, all reports of tui sightings are
extremely helpful. With flax starting to flower and pohutukawa set to
follow soon after, there may be some very conspicuous targets for
foraging tui available in coming weeks – so please keep an eye out!

Cheers,

Laura