Issue #14 March 2019

Welcome to Issue #14 of the newsletter. Breeding season is almost over with the last chicks hopefully about to fledge. We are looking forward to hearing your results for this season!

If you could please click here to send through your results using the given headings. The information you provide is extremely valuable to us in understanding how dotterel are doing regionally, as well as ongoing challenges and emerging threats that we need to look at or support getting addressed. All reports are important information (everything from great success, to all nests failing, or dotterel previously nested at a site but didn’t this year – it all adds up!).

Post-breeding flock counts

The Auckland branch of Birds New Zealand is carrying out post-breeding flock counts for Northern NZ dotterel over the following dates:

23^rd March – east coast sites (mid-morning high tide)
24^th March – west coast sites (afternoon high tide)

Please contact Gwenda Pulham (09-480 5535) if you are interested in participating. If you know of any smaller flock sites not otherwise included in these counts, it would be great to include the numbers from them too. So if you are able to survey them in the couple of days prior or after the main counts (the tides should be suitable), please let Gwenda know.

The Auckland NZ dotterel minders forum 2019 will be held on Tuesday the 16^th of April at Ambury Regional Park. Please remember to RSVP if you haven’t already done so.

[Dotterel at Piha Beach, Auckland. Photo: RNZ / Sarah Robson]

Auckland NZ dotterel in the news:

Three dotterel chicks made it through the peak summer period at Piha thanks to volunteer efforts. Have a listen to the story on Radio NZ’s Morning Report.

And a temporary dog ban has helped dotterel at Surfdale Beach, Waiheke.

Writeable sign trial

The idea for writeable signs came from attendees of the last dotterel forum. We printed 10 as a trial this season. The hope was that the hand-written and regularly updated signs might be complementary to but also more engaging to passers-by than our static signage. Here are some examples of how they have been used -

[‘Some dotterel facts’ and ‘the bethels dotterels’ are from Bethells and the other one is from Waiwera]

[Photo by Jordi J. Tablada, chick flagged at Piha]

ELFs

Six more dotterel chicks on the west coast (Piha and Karekare) have had engraved leg flags (ELFs) put on them this year by Adrian Riegen. Please keep an eye out for any NNZD with ELFs and report sightings (even if you cannot read all the letters on the flag) to Adrian (riegen@xtra.co.nz).
We are interested to see whether these chicks raised on the west coast will return there to breed. One of last years flagged chicks (CLH) has been reported on the north shore and near Whitford in east Auckland! See these observations recorded on iNaturalist: https://inaturalist.nz/observations/11146804 and https://inaturalist.nz/observations/19536263

[Photo by Shaun Lee, Motukorea / Browns Island]

Cave-nesting dotterel

Cave nesting was observed at two new sites this season. Motukorea / Browns Island (pictured above) and at Tāwharanui where Alison Stanes found a nest in a rabbit hole! Cave nesting by NNZD has been observed twice before in Auckland on Motuihe and Motuora and once before at Otahei Bay in the Bay of Islands. Read more about cave nesting in Issue 9 of this Newsletter.

This dotterel at Waipu has found a good spot to nest. Thanks for the photo Susan Steedman.

This six legged dotterel at Tāwharanui is the same one that nested in the rabbit hole. John Dowding says no one wants to sleep under Dad, Mum is the favourite! Thanks for the photo Alison Stanes.

Dotterel Management Course

Each year Pukorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre runs a course on dotterel management tutored by John Dowding. This year it will be held September 10-12th. If you are interested in attending please let us know as we can fund attendance for this.

If you have any interesting NZ dotterel observations or photos you would like to share with the group, please send them through to us for the next issue.

A big thank you to everyone for all of your hard work over the breeding season! We look forward to reporting the results in the next newsletter.

If you know someone who may be interested in signing up to this newsletter, please send them this link: http://eepurl.com/1Rdrv

Thanks again for all your hard work.

Jacinda Woolly, Ben Paris, and Chris Bindon.

Auckland Biodiversity Group
Environmental Services Unit
Auckland Council

Phone: 09 301 0101
Email: biodiversity@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz
Visit our website: www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz
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ben.paris@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

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