I've borrowed a newly developed AR4 recorder and set it up in Russell State Forest, Northland.
This is primary forest. Some years ago I had previously spent the required 8 hours listening protocol for kiwi calls - and recorded one female.
So I was not expecting much.
The recorder was brilliant!
Sound quality was good.
The Kiwi were easy to hear and see on the spectrogram. There is no directional indication but I was probably recording calls from two pairs.
Ruru gave a good number of calls as well (See attachments).
So the recorder picked up Kiwi presence where I had not.
And I did not recognise any possum calls. That is good news.
The significance is that a 1080 drop happened late last year in Russell Forest.
Kiwi can now, if the control is maintained, hopefully increase substantially from their present numbers.
I read a memoir where in 1841 a party got bushed and had to sleep over in Russell Forest and were 'kept awake by the Kiwi and owls calling all night' .
It would be great if we could get back to sleepless nights in the forest again!
Spectrogram of 15 minute range from 2030-2045 of kiwi calls showing distinctive Kiwi call pattern. Ruru 'Oww' calls are a series of vertical lines just after the very loud female Kiwi has called. There is a second male kiwi call just before 10.00 (minutes i.e. 2040) on the spectrogram.
