Rangers Report June 2015

Warm winter greetings…it has been a very productive June out at Bream Head. The network of bait stations, monitoring and trap lines that the Trust requires to manage the entire 800ha reserve are all now marked and cut. Only a handful more bait stations and traps need to be installed on these lines and its all systems go. Earlier in June all 2000 native plants were lovingly placed in at Homebay, Whangarei Heads School planted approximately 400 trees at Urquhart Bay, we had a fantastic public turn out for Kevin Parker’s presentation about our proposed re-introductions next year, we were visited by a sun basking seal, our kiwi call counts recordings were completed, solar power has been installed at our HQ and a potential seabird burrow sight was discovered!

sea bird burrows?

Possible sea bird burrows in Bream Head Reserve

Potential Sea Bird Nesting Site Found

Another potentially fantastic biodiversity discovery for BHCT and the reserve may have just been found at the very eastern tip of Bream Head reserve. Approximately eight burrows dug into the dirt under tree roots were found. There is loads of fresh green feces near the entrances to the burrows which are all located in one small site on a spur. Our new infra-red camera is now out at the site and will hopefully capture images of birds using the burrows. If this is the case the next thing to do is carefully do a burrow check with a special burrow scope camera to see if eggs are present (mid June - Mid July is egg laying time for Grey Faced Petrels). Fingers crossed for a positive result…keep an eye out on our Facebook page to see what the camera returns!

Read the June 2015 Rangers Report (1.2MB pdf) for more details on this and other stories.