Mahi Kororā
Kororā planning
We would really like to get this project formalised and streamlined ahead of the upcoming season starting in June/July. I have ordered more nesting boxes to be installed at Wai iti, Urenui and Onaero and have begun planning for volunteer inductions and working bees at the sites. This year we will be incorporating the project with our mauri compass so it will need to have much more structure than in the past.
Kororā
Kororā have begun nest buildng. Kororā monitoring is well underway with another volunteer induction day tomorrow. There are also plenty of Oi nesting at Paparoa currently and I will try to get up to Maruehi for a look as soon as I can. We have put the hinaki in to try and catch some Piharau but alas were unsuccessful in the Mimitangiatua, will try at Urenui behind Okoki pā at some stage, these are places where they have been historically caught.
Seabirds
We now have solid volunteer crews on roster carrying out weekly nest checks on Kororā at both Urenui and Wai iti. 10 new nest boxes have been installed at each site in addition to a few existing boxes already in place. We currently have two active nests for monitoring at Urenui and one at Wai iti. We have recently attatched GPS loggers to two kororā from Urenui to track their foraging habits over 5-7 days. Tracking data from Ngāmotu earlier in the month show that kororā from the port are travelling to between Wai iti and Parininihi for foraging this year so we are interested to see if kororā from Urenui forage the same areas. All kororā data and information will inform our marine mauri compass report which will be put together by Ian Ruru later this year, maybe early next year.
We are also monitoring Tīti burrows at Paparoa and Maruehi. Paparoa have 19 natural burrows which are monitored by us with the support of TRC using an endoscope camera. We currently have 15 active Tīti nests at Paparoa and 2 at Maruehi. These burrows are only checked three times in a season, one at the begining of the season, one around hatch time and one just before fledging.
We are working with the wild for Taranaki seabird strategy project around providing support for our seabird projects.
Seabirds
Kororā – Our Kororā are part of a larger monitoring programme started by the Ngāmotu Marine Reserve Society and Ngāti Te Whiti around 5 years ago. With the support of DOC Treaty funding we have expanded our Kororā nesting box locations at Wai-iti and Urenui by 20 at each site. Our Kororā colonies are returning to shore and this season’s nest building and breeding is well underway. Weekly monitoring of nesting manu is carried out by whānau volunteers on a roster basis. Each whānau volunteer undertook an induction utilising our Pou Taiao L3 training achievement and we now have around 18 volunteers involved in this exciting and precious mahi. The DOC Treaty funding was also used to purchase two Kororā nest check kits for the volunteer teams.
Two early breeding Kororā from Urenui were fitted with GPS tracking equipment and their fishing activities/foraging habits to feed themselves and their chicks were monitored. Over 5-7 days, they swam and fished over a distance of 163Kms from Urenui out to the North/Northwest. The tracking data of Ngāmotu Kororā showed them to travel from Port Taranaki to between Wai iti and Parininihi as they forage. Nightly catch, tag and release of kororā at Urenui and Wai-iti will continue.
