Maungatautari kiwi season.
It started in 2005 with four chicks gifted by Ngāti Hikairo ki Tongariro and a little over a decade later Sanctuary Mountain had become a kiwi kohanga for North Island browns.
When I visited this month the kiwi population was estimated at a whopping 3300 and rising.
Tori Budd shows the Kiwi Experience party the perfectly behaved two-year-old kiwi. Photo: Roy PIlott
I was on Sanctuary Mountain as their guest on the final week of their Kiwi Experience Tours which started last month.
Sanctuary Mountain has “exported” more than 800 kiwi since its programme to build wild populations in other parts of the North Island began four years ago.
Eighty percent of the kiwi in the hills around Wellington came from Maungatautari.
Funds from the experience tour go towards Sanctuary Mountain’s kiwi programme.
Our group included four from Matamata, a couple from Orewa, a resident who lives just down the road from the sanctuary and a tourist from New York.
Steven had been attracted to New Zealand by the Lord of the Rings publicity and had spent time in Rotorua before getting to see a kiwi on Maungatautari.
I know from experience no two days walking along the Maungatautari tracks are the same.
On some days kākā, tieke, hihi, grey warblers, tūī, kōkako, kereru and robins will come out to play. On others, you must sit quietly and hope for the best.
This was one of those days – we were serenaded by a tīeke as we watched a check being made on a kiwi, but one flitting grey warbler aside, the birds were heard and not seen.
Oh, the irony the next day at home as I removed some weeds from a garden bed with a tūī and a warbler watching me.
But it’s also the majesty of Maungatautari which make it so special – particularly in late spring when shafts of light illuminate parts of the forest floor.
Our first stop was to look at a burrow – pointed out by our guide Meridy Belcher. You wouldn’t know if you were not told it was there. Burrows vary in size and can have more than one way in and out.
Meridy, like most who work at Maungatautari, travels quite some way to get to work – in her case it’s a 30-to-40-minute drive from Tokoroa.
During the “transfer” season, kiwi are taken from the mountain, fitted with transmitters and placed in a smaller enclosure where the can be monitored. This burrow has no doubt seen a significant number of short-term residents.
It is the only time the kiwi on the maunga are disturbed – unless rangers find one is unwell.
Our team is taken to a small, covered area where a two-year-old female kiwi is presented, and we get an opportunity get up close and watch as checks are made on the bird’s spine and eyes and ears.
They are also checked for ticks.
Her microchip – number 74928, is under a wing. Further checks are made – bill length, feet and weight.
She is declared fit for her next journey, and we are given an opportunity to go exploring.
Storm damage is evident – there are fallen trees, some recent, some from long ago. A walk up the staircase to a viewing platform confirms my new knee is getting stronger. We get fantastic views across the forest – but those birds remained elusive.
Tour guide Meridy Belcher, right, took our Kiwi Experience tour on Maungatautari. Photo: Roy Pilott
