Bird News for 2024/25 Season

Two well grown juvenile torea pāngo/variable oystercatchers


I’m afraid we’ve gone from riches to rags as far as tūturiwhatu breeding is concerned with no chicks hatched at all this year, let alone fledged, compared to 11 last season. Fewer pairs attempted to nest (5 as opposed to 8 in 2023/4), which partly explains the difference. Neither tūturiwhatu nor torea pāngo nested this season on the Okura chénier despite a pair of each species occupying the site during the breeding season. The coast here is dynamic and increased tidal scouring of the chénier has resulted in the erosion of favoured breeding sites. Hopefully a period of deposition will rectify this in the future, indeed there’s been a build up of shell on the seaward side at the base of the chénier, which potentially provides safe breeding sites but the birds have, so far, ignored them. Of the three pairs of tūturiwhatu at Karepiro, two nested on the beach and one in the Weiti development. The two beach pairs laid five times but lost all to high tides which swamped the nests. A pair nested in the Weiti development, which was very exciting as nests are safe from tides, but unfortunately an adult was predated, probably by a cat. Two pairs nested on the Weiti chénier. One pair nested twice and lost both nests, one of which was definitely predated by a kahu/harrier (Linda’s trail camera snapped the guilty party). The other pair lost at least two nests due to unknown reasons. The torea pāngo had a more successful season with four pairs producing four chicks.

While the breeding success has been disappointing this season, the results need to be seen in context. Tūturiwhatu nest in areas susceptible to high tide inundation and have numerous predators so breeding is always precarious and in most seasons they will have limited success, but when the stars align and luck is with them they are capable of producing many young. Over the past seven years there have been two good breeding seasons (six and eleven chicks fledged). Conservation efforts such as pest control, roping off breeding sites, and public education create the right conditions so that when a good season comes around the birds can exploit it and breed successfully. Tūturiwhatu are long-lived with a banded female that’s nested on the Weiti chénier originally captive-reared at Auckland zoo during the 1997/8 season making her 27 years old. She even bred (unsuccessfully) last season. So each pair has plenty of time to replace themselves, which combined with their ability to produce up to three clutches of up to three eggs, is how they cope with high nest failure rates in most years.

Karepiro roost with torea/pied oystercatchers in front and kuaka/godwit at the back busy feeding


The kuaka are still here, although the flock seems to have split itself between Weiti and Karepiro, and are busy feeding to fatten up for their journey to the Yellow Sea. The birds will start to get their colourful breeding plumage soon and will be leaving from early March onwards apart, that is, from the few that will over-winter here. The torea/pied oystercatcher flock is growing (at least a couple of hundred birds) as they return north for the winter. And so the cycle continues.

Weiti roost with the kuaka/godwit flock on the right and the torea/pied oystercatchers on the left.

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