Te Hoiere awa revealed an exciting surprise the first weekend of May, as a pair of whio (blue ducks) were spotted near Department of Conservation huts, located mid-catchment in Mount Richmond Forest Park.
The whio were spotted by Nick Eade, a longtime volunteer of Forest & Bird’s Te Hoiere Bat Recovery Project, and Willi Borst, Te Hoiere Project Co-ordinator. They spent three days in the area retrieving a series of acoustic bat monitors as part of the pekapeka (long-tailed bat) recovery project. On the Friday night at Rocks Hut, they met a tramper who had spent the previous night at Roebuck Hut and spoke about a pair of whio he had seen in the awa there.
The next day, Nick and Willi set off for Middy Hut and met another tramper who told them about a pair of whio he had seen an hour before, just below the swing bridge.
“We could hardly believe what we were hearing,” said Nick. “We knew that whio hadn’t been sighted in Te Hoiere for years, if not decades.”
Amazed, but not shocked, Nick and Willi found a pair of whio waiting for them underneath the Middy Hut bridge later that day.
“In the evening, we looked out of the hut window towards the river and saw the pair sitting on rocks. We walked down and sat at the river watching them for quite a while. They even swam over to us, which was beyond exciting,” said Willi.
The last recorded sightings of whio anywhere near Te Hoiere have been near Maungakura (Red Hills), east of the catchment.
Kiwi “hearing” in Paepae tangata (Mt Richmond Range)
Just outside Te Hoiere, but close by within Paepae tangata, there have been the occasional reports over the years of calling kiwi. The tramper who Nick and Willi met on their way to Middy Hut reported hearing a pair of kiwis calling to each other at Fell Hut the night before, as well as a single kiwi calling at Richmond Saddle Hut the night before. Nick and Willi are planning to spend a few nights up there themselves to see if these reports can be confirmed.
Related news
Read more about Te Hoiere Bat Recovery Project here
Read about the Project's work to locate whio here
