So it’s the last day of 2009!

We were all prepared to go out and change the transmitters on a couple of the 2008 juvenile boys this morning but the weather has thwarted our attempts, at least for this morning. It is the middle of summer and not a lot above zero outside. It snowed to 900m on the neighbouring Resolution Island yesterday.
Christmas has come and gone with a flurry of activity.

I came off of Codfish Island and onto Anchor with the staff changeover on Christmas Eve. There are five remaining on the list of birds targeted for transfer from Codfish to Anchor to make up the final populations on each island. The job started at first light as we planned to transfer three or four of these birds and make our lunchtime departure.

Christine Officer and I set off and the first bird we approached was Pura. Just after 6am and our initial glee at a strong signal from the track soon turned to frustration as we circled and peered up. There she was completely relaxed in the safety of her perch, five or six metres off the ground on a suitably skinny tree. We turned away, none down.

Moving to our next target we waded through the swampy terrain that JEM seems to consider nice realty. We weren’t so convinced of the re-sale value as the chest high crown ferns obscured the knee-deep mud filled potholes into which our boots occasionally plunged. We had tried to catch JEM the month before for transfer but on that occasion the boggy area near the swamp grabbed hold of the legs of one of her pursuers and reluctantly let go only after concerted effort. Thoughts of a similar outcome ran through my head and then suddenly the signal came in strong and we located JEM tucked up under a log nice and dry and in good condition, revelling in her muddy dwelling.

Our third and fourth birds were Weheruatanga-o-te-po and Pounamu. We ambled up the hill and got signals on both birds but Pounamu’s boomed in so we headed in that direction first. Finding her in a mass of windfall she crowed loudly as I grabbed her. She was very light and she smelt strongly. We had a quick check and found a severe infection of her cloacca, explaining immediately her poor weight and the smell. She was very unhappy and wriggled and grumbled all the way back to the hut. We abandoned the rest of our catch plans and bolted to get in touch with the vets and Air New Zealand to see if we could get her to Auckland Zoo on Christmas Eve for treatment.

Deidre made some hurried arrangements for transfer to Auckland with Air New Zealand as we only had just over an hour and a half before our plane for changeover was due on the beach. We gave Pounamu some food and took our gear onto the beach where we quickly did a check of the runway only to find a number of seals along its stretch. We removed a large piece of kelp and waved a couple of seals a bit further out of the way. The last seal at the end of the beach was in no mood for moving and it seemed he had an injured flipper. We left him be as there was nothing we could do except warn the pilot and we raced back down the beach before the plane arrived. On the way back down the beach there was a prion wallowing in the wet sand at the edge at the tide zone, in a little distress. We hurriedly grabbed it and placed it under some scrub on the sand dunes to recover. The third case of injury or illness we had seen that day, it seems nature doesn’t stop for Christmas.

Bill soon arrived flying the JEM and one of the seals decided to move closer to his approach area as he did a flyover. He pulled up short of the bull but the seal-shaped road block wasn’t perturbed, too busy being lethargic to do more than lift his head to growl as the plane snuck past. Dana and Jack arrived to take over the next month on Codfish Island. We were now on the way to Te Anau to deliver JEM and ourselves to Anchor Island and Pounamu was winging her way to Auckland. She ended up arriving at her destination before we did and the vets worked that evening to diagnose her and begin treatment for what turned out to be a Trichomonas infection. She is responding noisily but well to treatment from their latest reports so hopefully she is back soon in full health.

Christmas was fun with a couple of jobs being done in the morning, then the Santa suit came out with the brandy-flaming Christmas pudding that Tim had prepared the night before. Rooster the kakapo paid a visit as well, breaking in and running around on the deck like a puppy before we shuffled him outside. Boxing Day broke the spell and brought rain that raised the creek to the point where Tim and our volunteer Laura couldn’t cross it and headed off on feed-out the long way.

The weather has eased at times since then, enough for us to release Sass from the captive pen. Sass is a male transferred from Codfish earlier in the year and he was found a month ago, captured for a health check, weighing in fairly light. We have treated him for nematodes and attempted to fatten him up in the pen. He has finished his treatment and put on a little weight but not much. He is a founder bird, captured on Stewart Island nearly thirty years ago by a man known as Arab. He is an old looking bird and maybe his age is catching up with him. We do our best to keep the population healthy and primed for breeding but we cannot defy age. Even the wise old kakapo is not immortal.

Happy 2010!

Stephen,  -Kakapo Ranger, Department of Conservation