Pelagic Seabird Colony
Return to Wildlife & Habitat Restoration
During November 2005, Ecoworks NZ installed an outdoor sound system on the headland of Nick’s Head Peninsula. This solar powered sound system plays the calls of six pelagic seabird species, including grey-faced petrel, fluttering shearwater, diving petrel, black winged petrel, sooty shearwater and white faced storm petrel. At the same time we began installing artificial petrel burrows. We now have 45 large Pterodroma burrows
In May 2006 the first grey-faced petrels were seen visiting the site. Only 4-5 birds were visiting initially and 6 of the burrows were being regularly visited with nest material being carried into the burrow chambers. During November and December 2007 fluttering shearwaters were also heard flying past the speakers and calling and one bird was observed with a burrow-scope during the day in burrow 11. Exciting stuff!
During late November 2008, three years after start-up, we did another scoping and recorded two large, down covered grey-faced petrel chicks in burrows 4 and 10. Both of these birds have now fledged. These are the first grey-faced chicks recorded on Nicks Head Peninsula since the early 1930’s. Local Ngai Tamanuhiri have historically harvested this species, however titi had completely disappeared by 1931 (pers.com M.Pohatu).
So as you can imagine we are very excited about this world first. We did not translocate any chicks. We have been lucky that we have a prominent headland on the East Coast to attempt this project and have relied solely on pest exclusion and an audio attraction system combined with extensive artificial burrows in place.
