This year TOSSI celebrates 10 years of monitoring Pāteke at Tāwharanui – New Zealand’s rarest mainland waterfowl.
A number of Pāteke were introduced between 2008 and 2010, and since then they have established on the park and spread out into Omaha and Christian Bay by 2014.
So,10yrs ago in 2013, there were 32 in Tāwharanui. The survey is carried out by TOSSI volunteers every year in February.
Today, there are 98 on the park and 87 outside the park in Christian Bay and Omaha. In total there were135 counted and as you can imagine there was a lot of excitement when the survey was tallied up!
40 plus of them were recently spotted out at the campground wetland, we think they must have been having a party to celebrate their success.
So, some bad news…. There were and often are in the summer months, cases of avian botulism amongst the birds at Omaha. Botulism is a disease that can cause paralysis and kill them. It thrives in ponds during warmer temperatures, as the oxygen is depleted and the water toxicity increases due to many influences. How can we help?? Best not to feed them human food, this is bad for them and the water quality. And we should remove a dead bird so that the others don’t feed on the infected maggots.. Ew, yuk!!! ☹
Where can you see them? – Omaha waste and storm water ponds, Christian Bay and in Tāwharanui, in the Mangatawhiri wetland, the camp ground wetland and the Ecology Stream.
Happy spotting 😊
