It's been a busy week in Waiau and I am happy to report that I finally got a trip up the river on a Jet boat and found some of our Black-fronted Terns with around 100 fledged chicks in the middle of the river along with 4 Pied Stilt nests and 2 chicks that were visible.
I am thrilled with this find and it only goes to show that the birds will nest as soon as conditions are right. Interestingly the island where they have nested is in the area of the river where the Wrybills have been recorded in the past, so hopefully next year the river conditions will be right to allow us to monitor the river much earlier.
Both sides of the Mason river had the traps checked and on the far bank all the traps had occupants.
Our figures so far for this season are:
16 Hedgehogs
4 Stoats
6 Rats
2 Rabbits
We will continue to monitor the traps right up until winter when we will bring some of them in for maintenance and bait the others and check them at regular intervals.
Depressingly we still have idiots driving or riding through the middle of the birds but without an active Ranger in the area we stand little chance of being able to do anything about it. 3 boys on motorbikes completely ignored us when we were checking the traps and we were reluctant to say anything as it is probably the same boys that threw the traps into the river earlier on. Sometimes it is very frustrating.
No pictures today as the camera did not survive it's dunking in the river and I was reluctant to take my other one out in the Jet boat but hopefully we might be able to walk in this week and try and get some.
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