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Research to learn more about how the kākā move has been hampered by gloomy weather which meant that the tags placed on the birds to track their movements were not recharged during the spring.
But as the days lengthened, three of the 11 tags have come back to life, and data shows that the birds traveled about 150 km from Waikato north to Little Barrier Island.
The birds were tagged in September and the researchers received GPS location updates for days or weeks, Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research said.
But gloomy spring weather and the tendency for birds to spend a lot of time foraging under dense canopy of trees meant that the solar panels on the tags didn’t get much light. The batteries for the tags were depleted and the data stopped coming in.
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The labels were expected to start broadcasting again once the days lengthened, and after more than a month of silence, three have now been reactivated.
MICHAEL HAYWARD / THINGS
Kākā labeled in Waikato have flown north.
The latest data shows that all three birds have moved north, one in the Leigh area, one on Little Barrier Island and the other on Great Barrier Island.
The monitoring is part of the work being done by Landcare and the Department of Conservation to find ways to improve the abundance of native birds in fragmented native forests, using kākā as a case study.
Terrestrial ecosystems researcher Neil Fitzgerald said the researchers expected to hear from the other eight tagged birds during the summer and for several years to come.
Outside of the pest-free coastal islands and ecological sanctuaries on the mainland, kākā was thought to be in general decline, Fitzgerald said.
“Kākā has also been seen in some rural and urban parts of Waikato during the winter for the past two decades, but it is not known where they go during the summer when they breed.”
