Big crowd watch songbird release at Whangarei Heads reserve

Bill Mallett, trustee of Bream Bay Head Conservation Trust, looks ahead after the popokatea bird are released.

After travelling by boat and van 100 small songbirds were able to spread their wings in a Whangarei Heads reserve.

The popokatea, also known as whiteheads, had been extinct on the Whangarei mainland for about 140 years.

But on Saturday 100 of the birds travelled from Tiritiri Matangi Island in the Hauraki Gulf to the Bream Head Reserve where they were released as part of a translocation operation that has been 15 years in the planning - since Bream Head Conservation Trust's (BHCT) habitat restoration programme began.

"Coming down the hill there was a very big crowd. It was like a rock concert or something, there were people, about 150, everywhere," Adam Willetts, BHCT project manager and ranger, said.

Before the birds were caught, teams worked tirelessly to ensure the reserve was fit for the birds to be released.

Last Monday qualified bird teams from BHCT and Supporters of Tiritiri Matangi Island caught the birds.

Mr Willetts said to do this, popokatea calls were played through a speaker to lure the birds into mist nets.

They were then carefully put into black bags and taken back to a large aviary where they were fed, monitored very closely and banded for identification.

On Saturday morning they were captured in the aviary and weighed before being placed in bird-holding boxes and transported to Gulf Harbour by boat where they were blessed by Ngati Manuhiri, who gifted the birds.

Finally they were transported to the Bream Head Reserve's Peach Cove entry where they were blessed and accepted by Ngatiwai kaumatua Te Warihi Hetaraka.

The birds were released at 3pm by volunteers, trustees, supporters and sponsors.

"This is part of the process to returning lost species to the mainland. There have been reserves on off-shore islands for a number of years now but that is quite hard for people to access. Our vision is to restore the ecology and biodiversity of the Bream Head Reserve to what it once was."

Mr Willetts said the translocation was done at this time of year because it was after the birds had nested but before breeding season.

The translocation was funded by the Department of Conservation community partnership and has involved NorthTec environmental studies students.