Fernbirds at Pauatahanui

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ledzep
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Fernbirds at Pauatahanui

Postby ledzep » Sun May 07, 2017 10:23 am

Found two pairs of Fernbirds this morning at Pauatahanui. As seen in the photos, colour band on the leg of one of the pairs red on right leg and blue on left leg. One of the other pair birds had blue and yellow on the right leg. Very hard spotting the bands on the birds, as is getting a photo, but it is good to see them at Pauatahanui wildlife reserve.
Fernbird blue yellow.jpg
Fernbird blue yellow.jpg (138.2 KiB) Viewed 3244 times
Fernbird red blue.jpg
Fernbird red blue.jpg (137.45 KiB) Viewed 3244 times
Jim_j
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Re: Fernbirds at Pauatahanui

Postby Jim_j » Sun May 07, 2017 11:37 am

Hey that's great news - looks like they are staying put.
I'm hoping to go down tomorrow morning and see if I can sight any birds and get some band combinations.
There is an email address for reporting these pauatahanuireservecommittee@outlook.com

cheers
jim
Iain _Thorpe
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Re: Fernbirds at Pauatahanui

Postby Iain _Thorpe » Fri Oct 13, 2017 8:51 am

Saw a fern bird at Pauatahanui this morning. We heard it before we saw it. It responded to the “raupo” calls played off nzbirds online on an iPhone. It was in short scrub and rushes just off the north side of the track to the Pauatahanui stream mouth hide, about half way along. Good to see that one at least has got through the winter. Didn’t get a good enough look to see any rings.
Jim_j
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Re: Fernbirds at Pauatahanui

Postby Jim_j » Fri Oct 13, 2017 9:36 am

Just a general note for all - the latest newsletter from Wellington Birds states the birds are currently breeding and is recommending avoiding the use of call lures in case this impacts nesting success.

Link here
https://www.osnz.org.nz/sites/osnz.org. ... 201709.pdf

With a small founder population, ongoing predator pressure, roads fragmenting the habitat and the close proximity to people & domestic pets I imagine this first breeding season will be vital to the success of the transfer.

cheers
jim
Iain _Thorpe
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Re: Fernbirds at Pauatahanui

Postby Iain _Thorpe » Fri Oct 13, 2017 10:32 am

Thanks Jim That would have been good to know. Thankfully we only played calls on one occasion after we had heard a call and seen likely movement, so I don’t think we moved a bird off a nest. We also visited all other hides and neither heard nor saw any other fernbirds.

Cheers

Iain
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bsd1
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Re: Fernbirds at Pauatahanui

Postby bsd1 » Mon Oct 16, 2017 1:58 pm

I managed to spot what was likely just one fernbird on Sunday evening. I saw and heard the bird twice in the space of about twenty minutes. The band combination for the first sighting was (left) Orange/Yellow, (right) red/silver, I couldn't confirm bands for the second but given the proximity and similar behavior I assume they're the same bird. The sightings were either side of the boardwalk on the track heading to the hide overlooking the lagoon next to Grey's Road (west side of the road).

This was the first fernbird I've seen and heard so I'm pretty happy about that. Not the greatest photos in the world but a good place to start. Hopefully they continue to do well here.

Image

Image

(FYI I've emailed the details to pauatahanuireservecommittee@outlook.com as well)
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bsd1
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Re: Fernbirds at Pauatahanui

Postby bsd1 » Tue Nov 20, 2018 8:40 pm

On the 17th November heard and then spotted a fernbird on the western side of the reserve, next to the stream on the way out to the hide. Interestingly this one had no bands, evidence of successful breeding?

Image

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