A few of us carried out 5 ruru/morepork surveys in the early evenings last month. We had a great turnout for the Patumahoe / Henry’s Bush walk and enclosed are some of the ruru team. The ruru were not quite so plentiful with only 1 being heard. We had a great evening walk with a couple of minor diversions.
The Mauku and Bald Hill surveys were a different story with ruru locations far outnumbering people. For Mauku we heard ruru in 11 different locations including siting 2 just 15m away in a totara behind Vicki and Leonard Lacy’s house on Basset Rd. On the Mauku circuit we came across this on the footpath just along from the tennis courts. To our surprise just 3m above was an almost fully fledged kereru chick.
At Bald Hill (Whakaupoko) there were 8 different ruru locations within a radius of no more than 300m. We tried the bush behind Pukekohe Hill with no luck but to our surprise picked up 3 in Pukekohe around Rooseville Park with 2 of these outside the park area and around houses.
Anyone keen to do some surveys in their area and not sure what to do give me a call. Andrew Sinclair 021 268 1904. We will repeat these surveys each year. At Bald Hill and around Mauku it is encouraging to see the high numbers of ruru especially as many of the landowners in these areas have been actively controlling rats & possums mainly via frequent use of bait stations with low levels of bait. (Approximately 1kg/ha/year).
We will leave you with this poem composed by Whakaupoko Landcare chair Pete Hardy.