November Newsletter | www.nbr.org.nz

November 2010 Newsletter
On Live days at the Museum we are unable to Staff the Centre as weekends are the only time we can catch up with work at home. It would be great to be open on a live day, we do open the Centre but not till 4.00 – 4.30, if you want to see the Birds you can still visit as we don’t close until we finish the Birds.

The little Kiwi that was on TV the one we called Bulldozer is a very active little Kiwi and loves worms, I make him a dish of fresh food each night but no that’s not good enough, more worms please. Very soon he will be shifted along with another Kiwi Chick we hatched to Limestone Island.

It good to see the Native Pigeons have dropped off at the Centre, each year we receive around 30-40 Pigeons that have been injured by hitting house windows, on a busy year we can get as many as 50 injured one’s but this year because of the drought last Xmas we have received about 150 Pigeons.

We just get over one thing then the Chick season starts, lots of young Birds being sent to us, many have fledged the nest and with the wind around they end up on the ground, and most we receive have been caught by cats. We will take any Wild Bird that is in trouble but please make sure that the Chicks are not caught by Children who feel they are in trouble as they are not in a nest, if found on the ground they can be put back into a tree as the Parent Birds will still come and feed them. It takes a lot of effort to hand rear any Chick and can be quite costly for the Centre.

The next Bird you will start to see a lot of is the Little Blue Penguins, if you find a Penguin at the beach the best thing to do is put it in a safe place like the long grass well above the high tide mark, most times they are wanting to rest and sleep, if you are unsure ring the Centre or The Department of Conservation for advice. If the Penguin has to come to the Centre make sure you keep them warm and dry, never put them in a chilly bin with water in it or wrap them in a wet towel as this will end up killing them.

Work on our new Surgery is progressing very well and we hope to have it open before Xmas, once we have it operational we will be able to help many more Birds. A big thanks to those that have sent funds in for this project, we are still about $5.000.00 short so if you want to support a really worthwhile project now is your chance, remember all those that have helped will see their names on a name board by the Surgery door.

Robert and Robyn Webb

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Feature Bird

Woof Woof

Woof Woof was our semi-tame Tui, he would sing and if you were patient he would talk back to you too. He would often startle visitors with his very deep male voice -- an exact match for centre manager Robert Webb.

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Snoopy

“Snoopy” our one legged North Island Brown kiwi died on Wednesday 20 June 2007. Snoopy was 15 years old and had lived with Robert and Robyn Webb at their home since he was only 3 months old.

Snoopys death was a real shock for Robert and Robyn as Snoopy was like a member of their family. Snoopy would call out to them when they arrived home at night and wait to be let out on the grass to probe for worms and grubs. The Webb’s have not had a holiday in years as they couldn’t just leave Snoopy with anyone.

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Sparky

Sparky will now follow in Snoopy’s foot step and take on the role of Kiwi ambassador travelling around schools and other public forums to promote wildlife conservation. Sparky is another one legged kiwi who lives at the Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre. He came to the Centre as a young bird in 2002, his leg injury was also caused by a “Gin trap” that had been set on the ground to trap possums.

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Story of an egg

Fertile eggs are recovered from the burrows of wild kiwi approximately 45 to 50 days into the 75 day incubation. Incubation, hatching and rearing of the young kiwi is completed in captivity.

Of all the kiwi hatched and reared in the wild only 5% make it to adulthood. Most of the 95% of birds that are killed, die within the first 6 weeks of life. Many of these birds are killed by predators such as stoats, ferrets, weasels, ferrel cats and roaming dogs.

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Bitty the Bittern

“The neighbour phoned me to come over and have a look at this strange looking brown and white bird. She said it was trying desperately to get into her chook house!”

Mr & Mrs Gregory rushed next door and immediately recognised the bird as a young Bittern. Bitterns fledge at 7 weeks (approx.), somehow the “teenaged” bird must have got lost and decided that any type of bird was a good bird to hang around with – even the chooks.

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Royal Albert the Albatross

On 24 December 2005 a Southern Royal Albatross was picked up from Ripiro Beach near Glinks Gully on the west coast of Northland, New Zealand.

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Gone wandering

This bird was found on Ninety Mile Beach by surfcasters on Friday 23 April 2007. The albatross was transferred to a small bird centre in the Far North. The bird was very skinny and they could not get him to eat so they sent him to us at the Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre on Monday 26 April 2007. It appeared that the bird had been caught in the recent storm, battling gale force winds from the east and he was absolutely worn out, unable to stand or hold his head up.

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Kotu the white heron

The white heron had flown into the back yard of a family in the Ruakaka area where he ate all the fish in the goldfish pond. The family let him as they were so amazed at having such a beautiful visitor. They could also see that the bird had an injured left foot and was not weight bearing on that leg.

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Little Blue Penguin Moult

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Morepork Chicks Too Hot In The Nest

The 2010 / 2011 chick season has seen quite a number of Morepork chicks come into the Centre. Robert Webb, Centre Manager, says that the very hot summer conditions are the cause of the problem.

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