In this newsletter we have items on:-
WekaWatch picnic, AGM date, 2016 counts, A new committee member, Our banded birds, Be careful what you wish for, Our traps and trap lines, A four legged visitor.
WekaWatch picnic
Our start of year social picnic will be held on Sunday 24th January (which is NOT Auckland Anniversary weekend) It is good to have time together with no traps to check, no weka calls to record, just to have a chance to meet and talk about other stuff.
We will meet at our local Regional Park, Waitawa, just 5 km west of Kawakawa Bay.
No need to reply, just turn up some time after 4.00 p.m. – if the weather looks good you can decide to come at the last minute. There is no rain date.
Date – 24th January
Time – from 4.00 p.m. High tide is at 8.30 so there will be a chance to swim for those who want to.
Place – Waitawa Regional Park. Drive to the end of the peninsula to Mataitai Bay and go to the left side of the car park.
Bring your own picnic tea, chairs etc.
AGM date,
The Annual General meeting of WekaWatch Kawakawa Bay Inc will be held on Saturday 16th April at 2.00 in the supper room of the Kawakawa Bay Community Hall.
2016 counts,
The annual autumn weka count dates have been set for the four Saturdays in April. We hope to complete the core counts on the first 3 nights. On the 23rd we will do Orere and mop up any missed core sites.
As usual we will meet outside the Kawakawa Bay Dairy to allocate count sites and equipment. Confirmation of your taking part helps us plan site allocation. Remember a reasonable standard of fitness is required for most sites.
| Date | Meet at | Count starts | Sunset |
| 2nd April | 5.30 | 6.45 | 7.12 |
| 9th April | 4.15 | 5.30 | 6.02 |
| 16th April – AGM date | 4.05 | 5.20 | 5.52 |
| 23rd April | 4.00 | 5.15 | 5.43 |
A new committee member
Guy Nash has owned a bach in Te Papa Road for many years and has always taken a keen interest in our work. When he expressed an interest in working with us we invited him to a committee meeting and asked him about his environmental credentials.
“Well,” began Guy, “I was introduced to the great outdoors when I joined the Boy Scouts. They gave me an axe and taught me to light fires.”
We co-opted him on the spot! Fortunately his eco-experience has broadened since those early days and he has skills and knowledge that we value. We know you will all enjoy meeting him.
Our banded birds
Our June 2015 newsletter gave no indication that things would change over the ensuing 6 months. At the time of the 2015 counts we’d felt there was an encouraging increase in weka numbers after the low 2014 counts. Te Papa Road had 3 or 4 resident pairs with some of them successfully breeding. In June and July we all noticed a drop off in the numbers of weka we were seeing or hearing in the Te Papa valley and in the frequency of their visits. Several of our regular males disappeared altogether (Wilson and George – Barry had already vanished) so that by about September the only banded bird we were seeing was Cheeky Charlie who seemed to have taken over the ranges of all the other birds.
We were also getting comments from property owners further round towards Waiti Bay that they were hearing and seeing fewer weka or none at all. We decided to do a four site count over 3 consecutive nights in early October which confirmed our observations. Only one or two birds were calling at Waiti Bay, none at all behind Tawhitokino and only one heard in Te Papa Road.
The cause of this population collapse was unknown; we needed to cover all possibilities. A letter was put in every letter box in the Bay reminding residents of the precautions we all need to take with dog control, rat poisoning and the risk of road kill. The traps were baited with fresh rabbit (see story below) and the trap lines were all checked with no mustelids taken.
Through all of this Steve and Debs, who live along Coast Road, kept posting encouraging reports of their pair, Whitey and Suzy, rearing first Tane, then 3 juveniles (unnamed – see photo) and now in January they have their 3rd clutch of two young. And this January in Te Papa, Charlie has been seen with a female and there are two other males calling, one in the west and one at the back of the valley answering his calls. [Since starting to write this we have read on our Facebook page that there is a family of 4 weka on the west side too] We believe it may be Whitey and Suzy’s sub-adults, Tane and the others, who have moved to Te Papa Road to start rebuilding the group there.
Be careful what you wish for
We wanted to get hold of some fresh rabbit for the traps closest to the houses, this being the preferred bait. If there were rogue mustelids up there we had more chance of trapping them with fresh rabbit than anything else. We put out a request for anyone who had the odd rabbit to contact us. One reply and John went to collect the ‘couple of rabbits’ this person had in his freezer. There were sixteen! Once again Phil’s workshop came into its own, the band saw was put to excellent use and we have fresh frozen rabbit baits for the next year or two!
Our traps and trap lines
The lines are all being walked regularly with an encouraging lack of mustelids being caught.
We have given a few of the traps supplied to us by Council at the end of 2014 to landowners whose bush clad properties are close to our trapping area. This could filter out some predators before they invade our core area and also protect a bit more land so the birds can move in greater safety.
Many of our trapping result sheets have been showing a high number of BGNT (Bait Gone Not Tripped) in the ‘Capture’ column. An infra red video camera placed by one of the traps gave clear evidence that one explanation for the missing baits was mice. Hungry enough to eat the bait, not heavy enough to trip the trap. One of these videos is on our Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/wekawatch.co.nz
Slime trails are also prominent across the floor of some traps and we assume that tiger slugs are also helping themselves to the baits.
Jon Anda our weka pen pal in Nelson gave us a hint – put the bait inside a perforated casing – this lets the smell or aroma out but keeps the bait safe. Cap the casing with a milk bottle top. After some research into importing stainless steel tubing from the UK at $50 a metre (very expensive!) and trying to drill holes in plastic waste pipe (very time consuming!) we discovered 
hair rollers at 5 or 6 for $2 (very cheap!) These are effective and we now have the aptly named “Aroma Towers” out in about 25 of our traps. We will add them to other traps as time goes by.
Bay residents were asked for bottle tops and responded with enthusiasm. We now have so many tops that we might offer the extras to Fonterra!
A four legged visitor.
We were fortunate to have a morning visit in late November from Macca and his handler, 
Angela Newport, from DOC. Macca is a trained stoat detector dog, hunting for evidence of stoats. Angela and Macca with Ian and Phil walked the area at the back of the Coast Road houses and up to the high points of the trap line behind Te Papa Road. The official report – In this area Macca did not indicate any scent or presence of stoat scat. However it was a relatively small area that we covered and one that could easily be within a hunting range of a stoat that was covering a much wider area.
Subscriptions
Our membership year is the calendar year and members will be sent a reminder shortly.
Best wishes for 2016 from your committee
Kevin Vaughan – Chair,
Rosemary Cotman – Secretary,
Phil Coory – Treasurer,
Yvonne Taylor – Minutes Secretary,
Trish Simmonds – publicity,
Nova Coory – publicity,
Ian Southey – counts planning and analysis
Joyce Frost – Orere liaison,
Denise Moyle – Website, Facebook,
John Cotman – trap line manager
Guy Nash – we are still deciding on his special duties
WekaWatch Kawakawa Bay Inc
C/- Kawakawa Bay Postal Centre
Kawakawa Bay 2138
wekawatch@paradise.net.nz www.wekawatch.co.nz Phone 09 2922 512
Macca got really excited when his ‘work jacket’ was put on!