Maungatautari kiwi calling for mates as the mating season starts

08/06/2009 17:59:38 The longer autumnal nights have signalled the start of the kiwi breeding season.
June 2009. Over the past few weeks kiwi calling on Maungatautari Ecological Island has increased as the birds call to their mates and begin to share burrows and prepare for the peak egg laying season in mid winter.

Chris Smuts-Kennedy, a Trust ecologist, said "This is also the time of the year when we put new radio-transmitters on the adult birds and give them a health check. It's ideal timing as we can also track the birds and see who is mating with whom. Although pair bonds do often last for many years - even for life, last year there was a bit of wife swapping as the kiwi attempted to find a suitable mate."

Invaluable genes

"While it is early days, we are excited about the partnership of Jo, an older female from the King Country, and Te Tuatahi-a-nui, a younger captive-bred male originally from the Otorohanga Kiwi House, who are sharing a burrow. As one of the last surviving King Country kiwi, Jo carries invaluable genes which are now only available in the few remaining birds. It's important that those genes survive, and for Maungatautari they would add to the genetic diversity of the population. We know Jo is old - we desperately want her to pass her genes on before her egg laying days are over."

"She has certainly picked the perfect match. Te Tuatahi-a-nui is young (eight years old) and in great health - in fact he is one of the poster boys for the project - he was the first kiwi to be released into the southern enclosure and the first kiwi to call on the mountain in 100 years - quite a lineage for any resulting chicks."

King Country kiwi
Jo was released into Maungatautari late last breeding season along with her King Country mate Mark. They had not produced a viable chick for many years while being monitored by the Otorohanga Zoological Society, and so were separated on Maungatautari in the hope that at least one of them would successfully breed with a new mate. It is not known yet if Mark has settled with a mate this season.

Kiwi tracking
All the kiwi pairs on Maungatautari will be tracked over the winter period from a safe distance. ‘Chick-timer' transmitters on the male kiwi indicate when they are incubating a clutch - and even emit a special radio signal when a chick is hatching under the male. At approximately 58 days (about three quarters of the way through incubation) the eggs are removed to the expert hatching facility at Kiwi Encounter in Rotorua. The removal of the first clutch often promotes an earlier-than-normal laying of the second - and they can even lay a third clutch, which is normally only one egg instead of the usual two. Three weeks after hatching the chicks are transferred back to the pest free enclosures on Maungatautari Ecological Island. The chicks then live entirely independently of their parents.