19-09-2013

Everyone except the Wrybill and Black-billed Gulls down on the river today.

 Black fronted Terns

 Paradise Ducks (there was a pair of Grey Ducks as well)

 Pied Stilt and Southern Pied Oystercatcher

Spur winged Plovers

The Banded Dotterel's and the Southern Pied Oystercatchers were busy mating - I refrained from photographs during the act!

Southern Pied Oystercatchers

The Waiau is still to high to go looking for the Black-billed Gulls, but the Black-fronted Terns  were all over the island on the Waiau at the confluence of the Mason.

15-09-2013

Another beautiful day in Waiau.
The river is dropping in these pictures but you can still see it has been very high and very mucky.

The Black-fronted Terns have moved but are still in the area. I just hope that they comeback when the water drops a bit.

The rivercare group had a working bee this morning and we finished the 50 traps and so we are now ready to go as soon as the water drops enough.

08-09-2013

Mary and I walked up the south side of the Waiau on Friday towards Rotherham. The aim was to get past the area where I got stopped last time and see how far we could get. The farmer had been back working and he had removed the bank which stopped me and we went into the tree covered area to find it very boggy and wet and thick with vegetation riverside.

We climb through a fence and walked up the back of a couple of fields to try and get past the boggy area and came back down on to the river only to find the water was right up to the bank and we couldn't get any distance, so we came back.

The only evidence of any wildlife we saw was plenty of rabbit droppings and bird and predator tracks in the mud. The Black-fronted Terns seem to have adopted the island between the Waiau and the Mason where I saw them before but the Gulls had moved on. We think we could see them (the gulls),  on the River Road side of the river and we will try and get up there this week - weather and work permitting.

I was down on the Mason today as the weather was perfect and the Black-fronted Terns were definitely taking off and landing in the area they nested last year as well. I didn't go across as I didn't want to disturb them but I think it will be definitely worth putting traps in this area, as there were plenty of Banded Dotterel's around.  The 2 Spur winged Plovers with chicks that I saw last time had gone, I expect that the chicks had been taken by predators - there were a lot of dog prints in the area as well.

28-08-2013

Look what I saw today

It's a Spur winged Plover chick. There were 2 of them with Mum and Dad on the Mason. Mum was still on the nest so I suspect there are more to come.

25-08-2013

A stunning day yesterday saw me on the south side of the river taking a walk.
Apart from some beautiful views nothing much around but I ended up stopped by some earth works that had been carried out probably by a local farmer protecting his fields. I got up level with the first bluff on the Rotherham road. I could have scrambled over the earthworks but thought discretion was the better part of valor as I was on my own. If anyone fancy's a walk in the near future let me know. When I check out the map when I got back the area appears green with a swamp/wetlands marked up, so I guess that I will either have to get through it or walk up the other side of the river.

There were a lot of tracks of various types. Some of which were definitely predators but a range of different bird tracks as well. Unfortunately I don't know enough about tracks to work out which was which. I think it is an area for future study.

When I got back to the area where the Mason enters the Waiau the Black-fronted Terns were still settling on the island in the middle and joining them for the first time this year were the Black-billed Gulls, just 6 at the moment but happily sitting on the end of the island. This would be a great place for them to nest as it normally survives most inundations and is relatively protected by the fast flowing water on both sides. It would also be a relatively easy place to put traps down.

22-08-2013

Well despite rain warnings we have a beautiful day and I took the opportunity to get down on the river to check for new arrivals.

 Banded Dotterel

 Banded Dotterel arriving

South Island Pied Oystercatcher

After walking down from the Mason river bridge I eventually found one Dotterel on the Mason but just up from the Waiau. As I was standing there the one in flight arrived. It's a long way back from the North Island.

The South Island Pied Oystercatchers (there were 2), Were in the same area as last year so hopefully will nest again.

They were extracting gravel on the south side of the Waiau but the terns seemed unperturbed and were busy flying in front of the bulldozer picking up grubs. Others were settled on a gravel island just in front of where they were working.

21-08-2013

Just to let you know the first 24 trap boxes have arrived. Bruce will continue working on the rest. Now all we need is the traps to go in them.The traps are due to arrive Christchurch at the end of the month. I have a warning stencil to go on the lids and I will try that out in the next week and also different ways of numbering them.
We have very kindly been donated an old GPS so we can plot the position for each trap.

The rivers are both dropping again but will no doubt rise with the rain forecast for tomorrow. This makes it a bit difficult to get down on the riverbed and check for birds. I was there last Friday and there was nothing around and as soon as I can I will go back down and have another look - apparently most of them normally arrive mid August.