Spotlight

Spotting Kiwis

The Lottery Grants Board is also helping fund another kind of night-time observer.

Since July 1993, Auckland University thesis student Sibilla Girardet has regularly spent nights on Tiritiri Matangi Island in the Hauraki Gulf observing little spotted kiwis. Originally her vigil was carried out on a fortnightly basis, but since last September she has spent two nights a week on the island.

The little spotted kiwi is the country's most threatened kiwi species. The birds are extinct on the mainland and can only be found on six offshore islands. Giradet plans to use a $5000 Lottery Science Research grant on night vision equipment which will make her challenging job much easier.

There is still another 18 months to go before the three-year study is complete. It hasn't been easy work and there have been difficulties along the way.

Originally five pairs of birds were transferred to the island from the country's biggest little spotted kiwi population on Kapiti Island, off Wellington's Gold Coast. Transmitters were attached to all the birds, but within six days one bird died and the transmitters had to be removed. This resulted in a setback for Giradet who, unable to track where the birds were, had to spend nights listening to them calling to each other.

She also had to try and find an alternative method of attaching the transmitters so they didn't cause any problems for the kiwis. After doing this and introducing transmitters a third of the weight of those used initially, Giradet then had to try to recapture the birds.

It took three months to catch the first one, but with help from DOC staff on the island, she eventually managed to recapture seven birds. Since then, a male has died and a little spotted kiwi female dropped a transmitter in her burrow. However, this has made it easy for Giradet to know where this particular burrow is located as she continues to monitor the remaining birds.

With the aim of comparing territory sizes as well as studying feeding and breeding habits, Giradet has found herself growing quite attached to the kiwis.

"When the birds die, it's like losing your pet cat," she says.

Because of the wrench, she now tries to keep an emotional distance, but admits she is again finding herself becoming close to a nesting pair.

There have already been two nests which have hatched one chick each, but a third is a two-egg clutch which has Giradet very excited. It is the first time this has occured outside of the stronghold of Kapiti Island.

Giradet keeps a close eye on the nest as she goes about her night-watch routine. Her nights on the island follow the same pattern each time --  half an hour before dusk she has dinner and then heads to the hills to sit by a nest and observe. She observes at all three nesting sites and takes bearings on where the birds are before returning to her campsite. She does another late night round and another in the morning.

There is one more round during the day when Garadet checks which roost site the birds have gone into and if they are together or not.

The information she is collecting is being computerised, which is an additional aspect to the project Giradet loves. With hopes of eventually working in the conservation field, she says the little spotted kiwi and Tiritiri Matangi Island will always be a special interest.

Keen on the value of long-term studies, she hopes someone else will pick up the project when her work finishes next year.