By: Takitumu Conservation Area (TCA)
Veteran Rarotonga Flycatcher researcher, ornithologist Dr Hugh Robertson of the NZ Department of Conservation in Wellington, is highly elated by the results of his latest efforts: “To say that I am very pleased would be to put it mildly” he said. “Rarotonga’s very own endemic flycatcher is romping ahead here, and doing quite nicely on Atiu, too.” Hugh’s main work in NZ is the conservation of all five species of Kiwi, NZ’s main national icon after the Silver Fern.
On his 23rd ‘save the Rarotonga Flycatcher’ trip to Rarotonga since 1987, Hugh was there between the 8th and the 24th of August to lead the 2-yearly census of all Rarotonga Flycatcher in its main home, the Takitumu Conservation Area and nearby. The TCA is 155 hectares of steep bush-clad hills on the wet south-eastern side of the island, and is a community-based project run since 1996 by its landowners.
Hugh took with him two other DoC staffers, Lynn Adams and Stu Cockburn, who volunteered to help during their annual holidays. Smiling, Hugh commented “They worked their butts off, too, so we may keep them on for another couple of weeks next time in 2013, perhaps…” Also, Lynda Nia and Ed Saul of the TCA supported the census party – and get to stay at least until Christmas, to slog it out poisoning the Rarotonga Flycatcher’s main predator, the ship rat, while the birds make their bid to breed. “Over the years, their efforts have been basic to the successful recovery of the bird” Hugh acknowledged.
All the work on the Rarotonga Flycatcher reported here is funded mainly by CEPF, the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund., through the local conservation NGO, Te Ipukarea Society. Hugh and the TCA gratefully acknowledge this help. Lynda and Ed’s visit to Atiu was sponsored generously by Air Rarotonga and Atiu Villas, as well as part funded by CEPF.
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“The weather and Lady Luck were on our side, so we strove hard and achieved all our goals” Hugh exulted. “The weather, in fact, was so good we didn’t miss a single day’s work, but the bush was drier than I have seen since 1988, and we were afraid that fire might get into some of the tinder-dry ferny spurs.* Anyway, we counted the birds, individually colour-banded 44 of them, mostly young from the last 2 years, and we sent 10 of these young birds on to Atiu.” He was quick to praise the efforts of Air Rarotonga in furthering this last aim: “Without their kind help with free flights for birds in boxes, we would not have been able to strengthen the genetic base of the Atiu population.” He went on to explain that, although the Atiu population was growing well, geneticist Dr Mathew Chan had recommended that more founder birds were needed there to better reflect their gene base on Rarotonga. ”We were also lucky to have Roger Malcolm and George Mateariki on Atiu to minister to the birds and release them after their gruelling experience” he added. “Overall, I am much gruntled by how smoothly the transfer went.”
Earlier, in March this year, Lynda and Ed had surveyed the survivors and progeny of the 30 juvenile Rarotonga Flycatcher sent to the nearby ship-rat free island of Atiu to start an ‘insurance’ population in 2001-2003. Because most fledglings had dispersed into the dense makatea (eroded raised coral limestone) by the time of their visit, they were unable to reach an accurate overall number, but, based on previous firm results, estimated the population to be 100-110 birds. “Now there are far more Atiu-bred birds than old originals,” Ed remarked “so really they have made Enua Manu (‘Land of Birds’: the alternative local name for Atiu) their home, too.”
So what’s it like to do the census, and how many of the birds are there on Rarotonga? In his unrelenting search for every seeable Rarotonga Flycatcher, Hugh is a hard taskmaster, moving inexorably as a grizzly through the bush, up steep slopes, along narrow ridges, plunging precariously into valleys, hopping boulders along the streams, only stopping to make swift observations and notes (and sometimes, mercifully, to set a mist net and band a few birds) before repeating the whole process again, kilometre after kilometre, for as long as the light holds: to follow is a hard act, arduous in the extreme – as the volunteers can attest. “Unexpectedly, some of the places Hugh led us were steep enough to give me vertigo!” Stu observed, while Lynn just said she got more and more tired with each successive day.
But the results Hugh gets tell it all. At the end of his recent work, he was able to report the minimum number of birds found as “374 (not out), because this total is sure to rise during the coming breeding season when Lynda and Ed detect the shyer ones we missed.” When counting stopped about 4 months after the 2009 census, the number stood at 330 “so now, two good breeding seasons later, the population is on the up and up. In fact, there are almost too many now to count within the time and resources available!”
Typically modest, he forgot to say that a minimum of 374 was by far the highest number ever recorded, and probably the highest number ever seen at one time in all history – a very long way from the dark days of 1989, when the population stood at a minimum of just 29 individuals, and when the Rarotonga Flycatcher was numbered among the 10 rarest birds in the world. He did, however, observe that these numbers depend on the efficacy of Lynda and Ed’s arduous rat-eradication efforts: “We wouldn’t have attained such numbers without their sustained hard graft over the years” he said.
Hugh Robertson left Rarotonga a happy man, gruntling to himself contentedly, possibly musing about rumours that soon BirdLife/IUCN may reclassify the Rarotonga Flycatcher as ‘Vulnerable’, rather than as ‘Endangered’ as at present.
Now wouldn’t that be a fine culmination, validating all his efforts?
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All the work on the Rarotonga Flycatcher reported here is funded mainly by CEPF, the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund., through the local conservation NGO, Te Ipukarea Society. Hugh and the TCA gratefully acknowledge this help. Lynda and Ed’s visit to Atiu was sponsored generously by Air Rarotonga and Atiu Villas, as well as part funded by CEPF.
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Footnote
*His words were prophetic. Shortly after his party left, on Friday 2 September a fire was lit in the Avana valley by a local, apparently to clear land. It spread through the tangle fern into the TCA and burnt up one of the spurs for about half a kilometre to the bushline. In the process it damaged regenerating vegetation, tracks, and baitlines for eradicating rats.
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