Ashburton black-billed gull update
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Frances Schmechel
Nov 4, 2010, 11:12:17 PM11/4/10
to BR-...@googlegroups.com
Some news about a
large colony nesting on the Ashburton River at the link
below.
Fantastic photo as
well.
| Black-billed gull -
www.ashburtononline.co.nz Thousands of black-billed gulls are nesting just below the State Highway One ... Because of this serious decline the black billed gull regarded as being ... www.ashburtononline.co.nz/site/local.../black-billed-gull.html |
Frances Schmechel
Acting Team Leader Biodiversity Programme
Environment Canterbury
58 Kilmore Street: P O Box 345, A2
Christchurch
Phone +64 3 372 7060
Email: frances....@ecan.govt.nz
Website: www.ecan.govt.nz
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John Dowding
Nov 10, 2010, 4:10:31 PM11/10/10
to BR-...@googlegroups.com
Hi all
A slightly worrying visit to the upper Rakaia yesterday. Keith Woodley and I went to Kowhai Flat and spent about an hour and a half walking around in the riverbed. I was showing Keith the area where Rod Hay did his PhD work in the 70s and where I had also monitored wrybill breeding success during the 1999-00 season.
We searched about 2 km of the riverbed on the true right of the main channel upstream of the campground. The place was deathly quiet. We found 2 pairs of wrybills, and both were foraging quietly, with no sign of nests or chicks.. In the same area 10 years ago, I was monitoring about 7-8 pairs. What was more alarming was the virtual absence of any of the other usual riverbed shorebirds. We saw no banded dotterels, no SIPO, no pied stilts, and no black-fronted terns. There were 3 black-billed gulls seen flying downstream.
Obviously we don’t know whether a larger area of the river is in the same state, but perhaps the upper Rakaia is now a priority for a survey. Past data suggest it’s a major stronghold for wrybills, but that may need to be checked. I couldn’t help wondering whether there had been a stoat irruption in the area – it’s hard to think of anything else that could have such an apparently dramatic effect. A line of tracking tunnels would tell us that. I guess a first step is to check a few other small areas and see if there’s a pattern.
John Dowding
A slightly worrying visit to the upper Rakaia yesterday. Keith Woodley and I went to Kowhai Flat and spent about an hour and a half walking around in the riverbed. I was showing Keith the area where Rod Hay did his PhD work in the 70s and where I had also monitored wrybill breeding success during the 1999-00 season.
We searched about 2 km of the riverbed on the true right of the main channel upstream of the campground. The place was deathly quiet. We found 2 pairs of wrybills, and both were foraging quietly, with no sign of nests or chicks.. In the same area 10 years ago, I was monitoring about 7-8 pairs. What was more alarming was the virtual absence of any of the other usual riverbed shorebirds. We saw no banded dotterels, no SIPO, no pied stilts, and no black-fronted terns. There were 3 black-billed gulls seen flying downstream.
Obviously we don’t know whether a larger area of the river is in the same state, but perhaps the upper Rakaia is now a priority for a survey. Past data suggest it’s a major stronghold for wrybills, but that may need to be checked. I couldn’t help wondering whether there had been a stoat irruption in the area – it’s hard to think of anything else that could have such an apparently dramatic effect. A line of tracking tunnels would tell us that. I guess a first step is to check a few other small areas and see if there’s a pattern.
John Dowding
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