Wild Wild Weka

 Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 67

  Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

One of the most debated issues in world conservation at the moment is how to re-introduce endangered wild animals into settled farm and urban environments. Much of the publicity has centred on inceasing populations of wolf, bear and puma et al, in North America, and then the reintroduction of the wolf in Europe and wild foxes in London. Here in New Zealand we don’t usually think of it as an issue in the same way, but as pest control becomes more common and with protected areas now seeding vulnerable rare birds into cities and towns, we are beginning to hear more of our own variant on it.

What a pleasure then to find weka starting to repopulate urban areas in Nelson town.  We live in the North Island where the wild weka population is down to around 2000, and you won’t see them outside of protected reserves. On the West Coast of the South Island however, and in Nelson you can occasionally stumble over them. These large rails are endemic to New Zealand with four subspecies and these photographs of a Western Weka were taken on the Marlborough coast, east of Nelson.

They can be troublesome because, like the pukeko, they will predate rarer birds when settled into protected areas. One was found for example, on Kapiti Island, predating an egg of the very rare Little Spotted Kiwi while the (male) parent was sitting on it. This is why the populations have sometimes to be managed, by transference to less vulnerable areas.

We’ve been lucky enough to spend time overnight on Kapiti Island and both kiwi and weka have a similar noisy call. If you are out before dawn, you will hear the kiwi screeching back to their burrows, (kiwi are very difficult to see in the bush in the dark even when you are only a few feet from them) but then the pitch will change as the weka’s awake and set up their own strident din. Perhaps these birds use this sound in ways we are only just beginning to suspect, to orientate each other.

Going

In Nelson we stayed in an area sometimes visited by weka, but in the way of these things, we were never home when they forayed out. Then we got an urgent call around six o’clock on our last evening as one came down from surrounding scrub to fossick for food. It was immediately clear we were dealing with a wild animal. Many urban pukeko are now used to human presence and hang around ponds waiting to be fed, but this one shied away from human contact. She hoovered through the garden shrubbery then shot off over the road, so that we despaired of getting a shot of her; but finally did.

Going

Locals say they’ve encountered two families this year, one with five youngsters tagging along. And despite local predators which include dogs, cats, rats, stoats etc not to mention karu (native hawk) – they all survived.

The Nelson Department of Conservation are well aware of this influx and get contacted by concerned locals all the time. They attribute the increase to community run pest control programmes which has boosted native bird populations in the town overall and encourage people to live with them. 

Gotcha

They can be troublesome however, scrounging pet and chook food and getting into the veggie garden; so recommend locals take evasive action to limit their access. They wont disturb these birds however regarding them as part of our natural ecosystem. And this is the kind of balance wildlife authority’s are trying to strike all over the world…

Thanks to Rosemary, Carol and Trevor for photo’s and keeping on the look out.

Track we were listening to while posting this…  Kinda Fonda Wanda  a classically affectionate Neil Young pisstake…

           Well, I went with Mary Lou
           Tried Peggy Sue
           Had a date with Donna
           And Barbara Ann too
           But I'm kinda fonda Wanda.
            Kinda fonda Wanda.

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