Seabirds return to land as protection increases

Steps are being taken to protect grey-faced petrels nesting at Whangarei Heads. Photo / NZ Birds Online

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 off 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, and recorded in a data base 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.

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.