Deidre Mussen, a volunteer nest minder, finds out that life can get very busy, very quickly on Whenua Hou/Codfish Island. Here is her account of what has been happening on the island in recent days.

The frenzy of kakapo breeding activity continues on Whenua Hou/Codfish Island with the discovery of new matings and nests an almost daily occurrence.  To date, the egg tally is 29, with 15 being confirmed as fertile.

Four more nests have been found, which brings the season’s grand nest total to 13. However, as previously noted, Nora and Lisa were unceremoniously shut out of their nests after their breeding efforts failed, to encourage them to mate again. But it’s still early days because 24 female kakapo have mated so far – nearly 65% of the breeding-age females on the island – so plenty more nests are expected over the coming days. Fortunately, more kakapo rangers and nest minders arrived on the island this week, helping with the increasing work load.

The latest birds to nest are Heather, Ellie, Bella and Esperance. Last night, kakapo rangers found two eggs on Heather’s nest, which were candled – a light shone into them to see if a chick was growing inside. Excitingly, both are fertile. Heather was found on Stewart Island in 1982 as a juvenile and thought to have hatched the previous year. She has nested four times previously but the only successful clutch was laid in 2002, when she had two male offspring.

Also last night, a single egg was finally spotted in Ellie’s nest, which is yet to be checked for fertility. Ellie was conceived on Little Barrier Island in 1999 – her parents are breeding gurus Lisa and Ox. This is the first time she has mated so is an exciting time, particularly because she’s a bird hatched and initially raised in captivity. She has two sisters, Aranga and Hauturu – Aranga, also a first-time mum-to-be, has three fertile eggs but Hauturu has  not yet mated.

Curiously, Heather and Ellie have picked nests from opposite ends of the challenging spectrum. Heather selected a manmade plywood A-frame that another female kakapo, Jean, nested in in 2002 and produced three chicks. Its easy access makes life simple for kakapo rangers and nest minders to manage her eggs/chicks. But it also means Jean, who has mated, needs to find somewhere else to lay her clutch.

Ellie, however, couldn’t have gone for a more secretive place. Her nest was 3m into the root cavity of a large rata tree with an overhanging bank beside it further complicating access.

It was an enormous task for kakapo rangers to work out how to access the nest cavity but they finally cracked it after several nights watching her leave on her nightly forage for food. They shone light into her nest cavity and discovered a small crack, which they enlarged to expose her eggs. Easy access to eggs and subsequent chicks is vital for their management, such as for candling eggs and health checks on chicks. A hatch is normally put over new access holes dug into nests, ensuring the eggs stay warm and dry.

Esperance, a 2002 chick, is another female kakapo to nest for the first time. Kakapo rangers and helpers set up a campsite today for nestminders to monitor her and also for Bella, who was found on Stewart Island in 1982.

One egg has been spotted in Bella’s nest but more are likely to follow. In 2002, she laid three infertile eggs – her only previous breeding attempt – but successfully fostered an egg and a chick that year (redeeming herself after breaking two of three eggs fostered to her initially).

Apart from the nest flurry, candling has also confirmed three of Rakiura’s four eggs are fertile, along with all three of Flossie’s eggs and all of Aranga’s three eggs.

To date, the egg tally is 29, with 15 fertile, excluding Lisa’s one fertile egg that died only days before it was due to hatch. Every fertile egg is a potential chick and offers high hopes for new additions to the kakapo population, currently at 91 birds.