200 bellbirds to get a wider audience

Ambitious: The bellbirds will be introduced to four new sites. Photo / Supplied

A bid to bring back the bellbird's melodic song to gardens in Auckland and Hamilton starts on Sunday with the release of 200 sanctuary-bred birds at four sites.

The delicate olive-green birds have been extinct from the northern mainland since ship rats and stoats arrived 150 years ago.

But they thrived on the protected Hauraki Gulf islands of Little Barrier and Tiritiri Matangi and in the pest-fenced Tawharanui Regional Park, north of Auckland.

Breeding stock from these havens will be released on Waiheke and Motuihe near the Auckland mainland and in the Hamilton Gardens.

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee said it would be one of the biggest and most complex bellbird "translocations" attempted.

"If rat management and pest control continues, over time we will see the colonisation of bellbirds throughout northern New Zealand."

ARC scientist Dr Tim Lovegrove said birds released at Waiheke's Whakanewha Regional Park and Hamilton Gardens sites would have sound-anchoring technology which would help the birds feel at home by playing recorded bellbird calls.

Feeding patterns and movements would be monitored for research.

The other Waiheke Island 11am release site is Fenwick Reserve.