New Zealand Dotterels

Katie Dudenhall, the new DOC dotterel volunteer, has started this week and will be seen on Waikawau Bay most days between now and the end of January.  If you happen to have seen NZ Dotterels on coastal bays around our area that look like they are nesting let her know on 07 866 6637.  To date we have lost seven nests, with three eggs in each from a high tide and weather event.  The birds, however are hard out back at it, and new nests and scrapes are appearing.  This year we are also trialling live capture cat traps, as there have been many sightings over recent months of feral cats in the area.  


Waikawau Bay Wetlands Rat Control Project

Good news on three fronts:
1. Moehau Environment Group has received $1,500 in funding for this project from New Zealand Landcare Trust Transpower Grants Fund.  This will allow rat traps to be installed to complement the bait station infrastructure.  To date there are now 100 bait stations installed covering approx 45 ha.
 2. On 25 November a Spotless Crake was sighted at the rear of the wetlands.  This is exciting news as very few of these birds have been seen in the northern Coromandel in recent times. 
3. Through a stroke of very good fortune 50 Brown Teal (Pateke), originally destined for translocation to Tutukaka cannot now be released there and DOC have chosen Waikawau Bay as their release site.  This will take place around the end of January 2007.  It dovetails very neatly with the rat and predator control work going on on the area and gives a great morale boost to the small group of local landowner volunteers as well as our overseas helpers.


Thought for the Year

We wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and a healthy New Year and look forward to seeing some of you at our Summer Holiday Programme events.  For MEG it will be fun and business as usual and I leave you with this saying which sums up some aspects of the last six months:

“There are those who would deal in the darkness of life
There are those who would tear down the sun
Many are ruthless but some will still weep
When the gifts we were given are gone.”