We had a very successful kiwi release on Easter Friday with 120 locals and visitors meeting on the Dudin’s property in McLeod Bay. We released two new kiwi to the Heads – a chick named “Harding” in honour of Peter and Betty Harding for all the hard work they do for our community, and “Ari” named by the Jaggers after the famous Finnish rally driver. Ari was fitted with a radio transmitter and has settled into an area at the back of McLeod Bay.

We will be releasing more kiwi at the Heads in the next month or so – subscribe to our electronic updates if you would like notification of release dates.

The “smart” radio transmitters on our other kiwi are telling us that the kiwi are very active at the moment. Most are “getting up” at around 5pm in the evening and are active for 12 hours plus – feeding up for the upcoming nesting season.

We are carrying out our annual kiwi call count at the moment as a measure of the kiwi population at the Whangarei Heads. We have trained volunteers at 21 listening stations throughout the Heads listening for 2 hours on 4 different nights. Initial numbers of calls are encouraging and their timing also reflects our radio transmitter data with call counts being high in the early evening as kiwi call to find their mate, and then call rates dropping off after that.

Some happenings with the transmittered kiwi:

– Jackie’s Boy – at the Nook – has been playing hard to get sleeping in hollow Puriri trees ( a great place to keep safe from dogs during the day) but he spent one day sleeping in some bracken so I caught up with him for his 6 monthly check and he was a healthy 2050g.

– Violet – This is the adult female who used to hang around the Manaia Club before the pine harvesting there and now spends most her time in the scrub on Mt Aubrey at Bay View Road. She has proved to be very jumpy since the logging operation and has become hard to catch so when I finally caught up with her this month I removed her transmitter (see photo above). She was in good condition and weighed 2700g with a bill length of 137mm. With good dog control she should have another 50 years of life there.

– JR – Who is at the North end of Urquharts Bay had a practice start to nesting back in April but gave up this month. Hopefully he will try again soon.

– Waka – Is still hanging around the beach houses at Mckenzie Bay – letting the locals know that he is about with some loud calling apparently.