Starting in September, The Great Matuku Muster 2024 was the first attempt to gather data nationwide on the number of male matuku-hūrepo [Australasian bittern]. Matuku are very mobile easily managing to travel several scores or hundreds of kilometres even in the breeding season so a collaborative coordinated approach over the whole country might be able to give a more accurate number of this rare and threatened bird. Three dates in September, October and November were selected according to maramatanga as being likely dates when males were maximally booming to entice females to a site.
John Sumich, founding trustee at Matuku Link as well as at the Bittern Conservation Trust, put his hand up to organise the “West Auckland” part of the Matuku Muster, with volunteers from Matuku Link, Ark in the Park and Birds New Zealand over fourteen sites in total.
Here at Te Henga wetland we had seven sites where for one hour from sunset listeners waited to detect the booming. Seven other sites were covered by volunteers to listen from a number of locations at Whatipu wetland. Friends of Whatipu volunteers listened at Whatipu sites, “our” volunteers went to the sites at Karekare and the one in the middle was covered by three West Auckland based Auckland Council rangers who each camped one night at Ohaka Point. Thank you all!!!!
A lot of effort went in with only a few booms heard but the September date was wet, with rain at times and wind so not a great night (see the picture above). The October and November nights had calmer weather allowing three sites at te Henga to record booms while the rangers detected matuku booms on each of the 3 nights at Ohaka point. While we heard booms from 3 sites at te Henga we had also deployed automatic acoustic recorders at the same places around the wetland we have used in the past 7 years and an initial analysis of those recordings for the October evening indicated 4-5 boom sites.
When listening for booms, the time when a boom was heard, the number of booms in a row and the approximate compass bearing of the origin of the boom were all recorded. The first two items would help to determine if the same bird was being heard from more than one listening point while the compass bearing we hoped might help another aspect of the exercise. With Auckland Council having a thermal camera equipped drone they had planned to survey likely spots along the Whatipu Strand and at te Henga for matuku-hūrepo nest sites, and our listening site GPS and compass bearing data could help narrow the area to fly the drone. There was a some initial excitement when it seemed that a matuku nest had been seen along the Whatipu Strand but on closer examination of the photographs, it was then decided that the nest with 3 chicks was that of a kahu [harrier hawk]. As a new team with new equipment it took the Auckland Council drone survey staff more time than they had anticipated so only the Whatipu area was surveyed but hopes are high that next season both Whatipu and te Henga can be done again after active human listening as this year.
We’re also still looking for some funding for Benjamin Brooking, a professional filmer, who volunteered his time to film us at Te Henga doing our (unsuccessful) monitoring – we’d love to turn this into a short documentary about that incredible bird, the matuku-hūrepo. Interviews with experts, threats to their existence, historical stories – it would make a lovely (educational) story for a much wider audience to raise awareness. We’ll need around $6000 for editing, music, time and materials to make this happen… if you have ideas how we could raise these funds, please contact us on hello@matukulink.org.nz.
Meanwhile we still have to wait till the results from the whole country are disseminated from DOC where all results were forwarded to be collated – stay tuned!
In other matuku-hūrepo news: several researchers are working on “Improving eDNA monitoring of Australasian Bittern: genetic sequencing of bittern and
testing methodologies in lab and field”. Download their article for BirdsNZ here.
At our upcoming World Wetland Day Festival at Matuku Link we’ll place the spotlight on this amazing wetland ninja, with talks about the matuku, unveiling of a new artwork by our very own Derek March as part of the Waitakere wide “Special Species Project”. Saturday 1st of February 2025 from 10 am till 3pm at 111 Bethells Road – all welcome. More info here.
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