Source: University of Otago
Two newly hatched dotterel chicks with an egg that is close to hatching. Photo supplied.
One Otago University Wildlife Management student enjoyed her summer in Kaikoura getting hands on experience out in the field.
Abby Clarke is partway through her Master’s degree. She and another woman, Alana Kimber, were given two projects to work on together during their three-month long internship with Environment Canterbury (ECan).
Abby Clarke
“It was awesome,” Abby says. “I really, really enjoyed it.”
One of the projects saw the pair down on Kaikoura’s coast working with banded dotterels.
“That involved nest monitoring, monitoring adult health, advocacy, helping to catch chicks and get them banded, and a few other things as well,” she says.
Abby had had a bit of experience working with endangered native birds prior to Kaikoura – she has been a volunteer at the Wildlife Hospital in Dunedin for a couple of years, and her masters focuses on yellow eyed penguins.
She has helped the Department of Conservation track down penguin nests which can take a bit of work, trekking through undergrowth. Locating banded dotterel nests in Kaikoura was a much simpler task: “the dotterel’s nests are just on the beach”.
However, this also presents an issue for the birds.
Alana and Abby seated on the beach. In the foreground is a dotterel nest containing two eggs. Photo supplied.
“It’s also kind of a downside because you get so many people going through there. You get motorbikes, dogs and then of course they are around cats as well, which is a major issue for them.”
As a result, there were low numbers of fledglings that season.
The birds formed a total of 53 nests, and laid about 160 eggs, but only six or eight eggs became fledglings, Abby says.
“That’s a very low fledgling success.”
This was despite the birds continuously re-nesting for around six weeks.
An adult female dotterel next to her nest which Alana is marking. Photo supplied.
“Three or four of those 53 nests could have been made by the same pair of birds, but their nests kept getting destroyed.”
The other project saw Abby and Alana using an app developed by NIWA called the Fish Passage Assessment Tool to assess structures in waterways such as bridges, culverts or weirs.
This helps NIWA determine how many species the structure could be blocking from journeying up or down stream.
The app gave the women a number of things to measure and visually assess at each structure. This data was then entered into the app, and the app generated a risk level score for each waterway structure, from very low risk to very high.
Alan and Abby working at Blue Duck Stream. Photo supplied.
This work is important because different fish have different abilities, Abby says.
Inanga white bait are very weak swimmers which can be blocked by almost anything, whereas eels can leave the water and slither across land as long as they remain moist while doing so.
Abby’s manager during her internship was ECan Project Delivery Officer, Heath Melville.
“I was very lucky, Heath came up with a bunch of opportunities for us that were outside of what our job descriptions were,” Abby says.
One of the opportunities was learning about fish surveys.
A bluegill bully found in Irongate Stream. Photo supplied.
“That involved going out at night with spotlights, climbing around a waterfall to try and find these fish. It was really cool.”
Overall, it was a summer well spent.
“The banded dotterel stuff was the cream of the crop.”
When Abby graduates, she would love to work with a population or ecosystem that requires intensive management, “getting stuck into that, and getting the community involved”.
“Basically what I was doing with the dotterel, but maybe at more of an ecosystem scale.”
