The egg tally is looking very healthy and has surged to 37 eggs for the season.  Of those, 20 are currently fertile and seven are yet to be checked for fertility.  Deidre Mussen,  a volunteer nest minder, continues to provide you with the lastest news from the island.

Several male kakapo had something to celebrate on St Valentines Day with some female visitors.  Smoko mated with Tumeke or Fuschia that night and Manu with Sarah. The last few nights have also seen more matings - Manu with Sandra, Piripi with Fuschia and Basil with Nora.  This is Nora's second chance to nest after her earlier failed clutch.  Sarah is a surprising and welcome addition in the breeding stakes.  Sarah suffered an injury to her cloaca (to put it delicately, her `privates') late last year and became very unwell so she wasn't expected to breed this year.

To date, 26 females have done their best for this iconic species' survival, close to 70% of the breeding females on the island, but there is still plenty of time for the others.  The male kakapo are still booming strong to attract mates, much to the enjoyment of nest minders hearing the resonant sound echoing through the night from their tent sites near nests.

Certainly, kakapo rangers have to be top detectives in working out which bird has mated with which.  They head out every day to visit the "boys" booming bowls to review information from a `Snark' placed nearby.  Snarks detect signals from transmitters on the kakapo's back under their feathers and records each kakapo coming close, so shows when females have visited males.  However, the rangers also search around the booming bowl for mating signs - feathers and down scrunched into the ground.  But the puzzle isn't fully solved until the chicks' DNA is checked, weeks after hatching, when paternity is conclusively determined.

The egg tally is looking very healthy and has surged to 37 eggs for the season.  Of those, 20 are currently fertile and seven are yet to be checked for fertility.  The remaining 10 failed eggs have either been deemed infertile or have died early, much like a miscarriage in humans, plus Lisa's last egg dying days before hatching.  Sadly, Ellie's first attempt at breeding has failed.  She produced a tiny egg but it was found to be unviable.  Also, one of Cyndy's three eggs suffered an early embryo death.  But the good news is Bella has laid a second egg and nest minder Fiona Gordon was thrilled to discover this morning that Esperance had laid a third egg at some point since yesterday morning, a lovely 24th birthday present for Fiona yesterday.  Both of Margaret-Maree's eggs are fertile, as are both Hananui's and one of Sue's three - the remaining two are yet to be checked.

Several females are looking settled and likely to be found on nests in the next few days, including both Zephyr and her famous daughter, Hoki, plus Aparima, a 2002 chick who became the youngest known kakapo mum last year by producing one female chick, JEM.