Monitoring Maunganui’s Petrels

One Friday in the school holidays we (Andy, Lucy and Lucy’s mum) went down to Mount Maunganui in Tauranga to help with monitoring the Grey-faced Petrels (Ōi) there. It was a balmy night when we met with Paul and Nami at the base of the Mount.  The two of them were the ones who usually partook in the work, (Paul was part of BirdsNZ whilst Nami tagged along as part of his university work) and the 3 of us only got the opportunity to help out as Paul invited us (he was one of the leaders at the recent 2024 Makarora Bird Camp). We walked a little bit up the mountain, entering the dry coastal forests in which the petrels nested, the squeaks of petrels overhead permeating the thick canopy. Reaching a rocky outcrop we mimicked the petrel calls, getting a few responses with Nami and Paul rushing down with bags, netting us our first petrel. Once they were caught by Paul and Nami, we checked for bands on the bird before drawing a little white mark on its head with twink to make sure we didn’t keep catching the same birds. This mark comes off after a few days of application. We caught 12 in total, the highlight being a bird that was banded 19 years ago!! but there were definitely a few more around, either still in the air or ones that eluded Paul & Nami. There were also a couple massive! sheet-web spiders in a collapsed pohutukawa and little penguin both in a burrow and on a rock, coming home for the night.

Overall it was a great experience learning from the experts about how to handle and check up on the birds. It was superb to see these birds and how they interact when caught and checked up on.

By Andy and Lucy

Cover photo - Closeup of a Grey-faced Petrel © Andy Xiong