BirdingNZ.net

Sadly once again this spring, the tide has washed over the Waikanae spit on the Paraparaumu side destroying all the Dotterel nests including the New Zealand Dotterels second attempt.
One has to wonder if the birds will have to abandon this once wonderful nursery for good, due to its low lying characteristics.

Yes this is the situation we have to deal with every year at Riversdale Beach. On several occasions we have raised nests to try and get them above high water levels and it has worked, mostly. This technique is taught at the Miranda Shorebird Centre Dotterel management course. May be worth trying at Waikanae?

How much interference will the birds take?

They’re pretty tolerant from my experiences anyway. I had to save a nest at Whangamata in the Coromandel from a super high tide by digging the eggs out of the wet sand, gathering some new dry soft stuff and placing it down. The bird was usually pretty quick to run back onto the eggs, which happened a couple of times over the course of an hour before we could build up a decent enough mound. But I might have just had a super tolerant pair as it had happened before in that location. Once we did all the renovations etc she took approximately an hour or two before she sat down again. Successfully fledged two babies though.

If I come across any nests that look at risk I will have a go at building them up.
We had no trouble until this year, the whole spit seems to have lowered its self.