Extra security to protect seabirds from stoats at Whangarei Heads

Grey-faced petrels re-established burrows at Bream Head naturally two years ago.

Grey-faced petrels are back nesting on the rugged clifftops above the coast at Bream Head, but work is needed to protect them from predators and ensure their eggs hatch.

With advice and assistance from New Zealand seabird expert and Ocean Beach resident Cathy Mitchell, Bream Head Conservation Trust ranger Adam Willetts and volunteers surveyed three known grey-faced petrel sites and found 10 adult birds sitting in the burrows.

They are most likely each incubating an egg.

This is exactly the same number discovered in the 2016 breeding season.

Tragically, those eggs all survived to chick stage before becoming victim to what appeared to be predation by stoats.

In a bid to stave of a similar massacre this season, rangers have added two more mustelid traps, six tracking tunnels and 10 infrared trail cameras at the burrow sites.

All burrows have been signposted, databased and, because of their location, had safety ropes installed.

Mr Willetts will revisit the sites every two weeks to replace the SD cards in the trail cameras and refresh the bait in traps and tracking tunnels.

The grey seabirds re-established their burrows naturally in 2015, the first time they have been seen on the district's mainland since predation by animal pests and human activity wiped them out decades ago.

There are colonies on pest-free offshore islands such as the Hen and Chickens group and a small translocated colony on Matakohe Limestone Island in Whangarei Harbour.

Grey-faced petrels are also known by the Maori name oi and as muttonbird.