Tiny songbird making return to pest-free home

The buzzing and chipping sounds of the small pōpokatea/whitehead bird will soon be heard throughout Shakespear Open Sanctuary for the first time in many years.

On 11 July, around 40 of the birds will be transferred from Tiritiri Matangi Island and released into the open sanctuary, in Auckland Council’s Shakespear Regional Park.

A second group of around 20 birds will be relocated from Tāwharanui Open Sanctuary later this month.

“It’s been decades since pōpokatea have been in this area and this will be the first of the ‘lost’ species reintroduced here since the pest-free sanctuary was opened in 2011,” says Auckland Council’s open sanctuary senior ranger, Matt Maitland.

“Having the birds in the sanctuary is testament to the dedication of staff and the thousands of hours put in by Shakespear Open Sanctuary volunteers in establishing the sanctuary and ensuring it remains pest-free.”

The birds are being released into the sanctuary on land owned by the New Zealand Defence Force and Mr Maitland says it cements the evolving and strengthening partnership between the sanctuary and the defence force. Defence force land within sanctuary is not normally accessible to the public.

Chair of Auckland Council’s Parks Recreation and Sport Committee, Councillor Christine Fletcher has praised the efforts of all involved including, Shakespear Open Sanctuary Society (SOSSI),park rangers and landowner partners NZ Defence Force and Watercare Services .

“This is vitally important work and it is immensely pleasing to see birds returning to the mainland as a result of those efforts.”

SOSSI chairman Peter Jackson says its volunteers and the wider community have worked for over a decade to establish this open sanctuary and return missing wildlife.
“It is very rewarding to see nature responding with many recent discoveries of wildlife returning on their own. But some species like whitehead need a helping hand as the distance from other populations is too great.”

Commander Stephen Lenik of the Royal NZ Navy welcomes the opportunity to provide safe haven for this new arrival.

“The Defence Force’s Whangaparaoa base traditionally has defended Aucklanders and New Zealand from seaborne threat. This strategic landform now serves to defend wildlife and continues to meet the training needs of a modern military.
About pōpokatea/whitehead
• They are gregarious songbirds that live in noisy groups and are often heard before they are seen. They are only found in the North Island where they inhabit mostly the canopy regions of tall dense forest.
• In the Auckland region they persisted on Hauturu/Little Barrier Island. Populations have been established in the open sanctuary of Auckland Council’s Tāwharanui Regional Park, the Ark in the Park in the Waitakere Ranges and on Motuora, Tiritiri Matangi, Rotoroa and Motuihe islands.
• Whiteheads are host to the brood-parasitic long-tailed cuckoo. The cuckoo lays eggs into the whitehead’s nest, which incubate it along with her own eggs. After the cuckoo chick hatches, it ejects whitehead eggs and/or chicks from the nest and is raised by itself.
• They are small songbirds with a compact body, short tail and bill and long legs. The head and underparts are white or whitish. Upperparts, wings and tail are brown-grey.
About Shakespear Open Sanctuary
• Shakespear Open Sanctuary is a 500 ha pest free peninsula isolated from the mainland by a 1.75km coast to coast pest proof fence. Animal pests were eradicated in 2011.
• The open sanctuary integrates conservation with recreation and farming and is visited by over 550,000 people each year.
• The open sanctuary includes the publicly accessible Shakespear Regional Park. Land managed by New Zealand Defence Force and Watercare Services Ltd are included within the sanctuary but are not open to public access.
• The open sanctuary is managed by Auckland Council with community partner Shakespear Open Sanctuary Society Inc (SOSSI).

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