Kiwi hot spot located. Earlier this month FoF and DOC surveyed the Boulder Lake area of Kahurangi to locate a source population of great spotted kiwi/roroa (known as GSK in the trade) suitable for possible translocation to the Flora. FoF’s Chris Potter and Alan White concentrated on the area around the Boulder Lake hut while Chris Golding and Ivan Rogers (in his DOC capacity) covered the nearby headwaters of the Clark River. Listening took place over 2 nights between 9.00 and 11.00 pm. Calls were counted, sex of caller noted and compass bearing and estimated distance calculated to create a map of the location of kiwi pairs and individuals. The news is great – 95 calls were counted, corresponding to an estimated 60 birds, many in pairs. FoF’s Ian Newton, Michael Douglas and Michael Rooke had to pull out of the planned survey of the Roaring Lion headwaters due to a bad forecast. The forecast was dead right, as we four found trudging out from Boulder Lake in torrential rain on the Friday! Thanks to the Perry Foundation for its grant, which will cover the cost of the helicopter flights into the park.

Thanks to donors. Thanks also to Mark Vickerman and Inge Anderson for their recent and generous donations to Friends of Flora. It all helps us in keeping up the good work of bringing the birdsong back to the Flora.

Inkpads show stoats are low. And a big thank-you to Lesley Hadley, Janet Lesser and friend, Bridget and Isaac Knowles, Julie of the West Bank Rd, the Barkers, Mike and Marion Day and Kate Light. Their many hands made light work of last week’s footprint tracking tunnel opening and collection. Best of all the papers collected showed no mustelid tracking in what is the peak month for stoat activity in South Island beech forests. A few more of us now have the hang of using the VHF radios to coordinate traffic in and out of the Flora.

Health and Safety – trap hazard. On a serious note a recent near miss incident on P Line has revealed a previously unknown hazard when working with the DOC 200 stoat traps. An operator was struck below the eye with a large chunk of the kill bar that flew up when the trap was set. DOC is investigating this hazard in some detail. In the meantime be make sure to visually check all DOC 200 traps you are resetting for fractured welds on the kill bar (the part that resembles a grate). If broken welds are in evidence, do not set the trap.

(S)total 500 reached! The pest tally for December 08 was 11 stoats, 16 rats, 2 mice and 8 possums. The tally for the same month in the previous year was 7 stoats, 20 rats, no mice and 22 possums. I will update the cumulative totals for the next newsletter, but since we had accounted for 489 stoats by October last year, I can safely say we have now surpassed 500 stoats!

Small birds at risk. A recent (17 January) article in the Christchurch Press sounds a warning on the decline of our small bush birds. Quoting DOC’s Pete Gaze, Lincoln University’s Kerry-Jane Wilson and Mapua ecologist Rhys Buckingham, the article laments the decline of small insect eating birds such as mohua and rifleman due to rat plagues following more frequent beech masting over the past decade. Fortunately, the rifleman/titipounamu in the Flora benefit from a level of protection afforded by out trapping efforts. See the full article here

That’s all for this issue. Remember, monitoring takes place on the last two weekends of each month.

Ivan Rogers, FoF commitee