Hutton's Shearwater Work

We spent this week working with the Department of Conservation (DOC) in Kaikoura, on a relocation project for Hutton's Shearwaters.

But first....did Rachael pass her PADI Open Water Dive Course? I hear you cry!

The answer is....YES! Last Sunday she completed her final exam and then went on her qualifying dive in the Reserve at South Bay with her instructor Gary and Lee. Although the visibility was not too great we spent around half an hour cruising around over rocks covered in seaweed and through alleyways created by uplifted limestone rocks!

Since then Lee has decided to hold off on his Advanced Open Water course until we both have a little more diving experience, then we hope to pursue the Underwater Photography Course.

in the butt

Monday morning we started the work with the DOC on the Hutton's Shearwaters, arriving at the office at 8am and then up to the Kaikoura Peninsula by about 8.15am.

The Hutton's Shearwater is a beautiful seabird that only breeds in the Kaikoura Seaward Mountain Range. There are currently two good sized colonies up in the mountains but these are vulnerable to habitat loss, and if wiped out as there is no other place where these birds breed, the species would be lost. So in order to safe guard the species the DOC are relocating some of the birds to a new colony with purposely built burrows on the peninsula. First 10 birds were relocated in 2005 and then 86 were brought down in 2006. The idea is that the birds will fledge from the burrows on the peninsula and then return there to breed in 3-4 years time - until then the DOC will not know whether the project is a success...

This year 95 birds were removed from the colony in the mountains and brought to the peninsula burrows last Friday. The next job is to feed them until they are ready to fledge and start their life out on the open ocean, here's where we come in, we spent the week helping to feed the chicks.

The work involved two feeding teams of two people - one measuring, weighting and holding the bird, the other person feeding the bird warm, mixed sardines with a syringe - two runners who collected and returned the birds to their burrows and a scribe to write down all the information.

We both got the chance to have a go at each job; running was good fun but hard work, walking up and down the steep bank and trying to avoid being pecked and scratched by the shearwaters sharp pointed beaks!

Working at the feeding station was a different challenge, the bird were first weighed and their wings measured, they were then fed which often involved quite a bit of regurgitation - Yuck! Once fed the birds were reweighed to establish how much food they had taken before being returned to their burrows.

During the later half of the week Rachael had a go at scribing, much more of a mental challenge trying to keep track of who had which bird, taking information from two different birds at the same time and recording it accurately! Lee had a go at actually feeding the birds, a little scary the first time as you insert the syringe down into their crop! But he soon got the hang of it and by Friday we were both confident enough to work on a feeding station together...

The final job of each day was to remove the gates on the burrows in which the birds were at the right weight and wing length to fledge. A couple of nights these birds would go out of their burrow and flap their wings, building up their wing muscles, they would then return to the burrow during the day. Then when they are ready they leave the burrow for good, flying down onto the waters around the peninsula before migrating to Australian waters for a few years until they are ready to return and breed...hopefully to the peninsula....

The scenery was stunning, ocean spreading out on either side, the mountains providing a spectacular back drop. The weather mostly held out, in fact was so calm on Monday we were able to watch Dusky Dolphins and a Sperm Whale blowing from our vantage point.

We had little rain through the week except on Tuesday when a fierce south westerly brought gale force winds that almost blew us off the cliff and rain that felt like needles against your skin. It was during the mid morning tea break when we were all huddled into the tin hut, which we could feel moving in the howling wind that we decided to abandon the site and return to feed the birds later in the afternoon when the wind had dropped a little!

All in all it was a fabulous week and a brilliant experience that we are both extremely glad to have been able to take part in...