A bittersweet story about the battle for survival between the yellow-headed mohua and introduced predators, particularly rats and stoats, has been highlighted by Otago Daily Times photographs of mohua chicks.
Since the start of last month, a Department of Conservation team has been carrying out a nesting success study in the Catlins, involving 17 nests of mohua, also known as the yellowhead, which is nationally endangered.
This small, insect-eating bird lives only in forests in the South Island and Stewart Island.
During a recent trip involving Doc staff, Daily Times illustrations editor Stephen Jaquiery climbed 9m up a beech tree in the Catlins to take rare photographs of mohua chicks in their nest, in a hole in the tree.
DOC ranger Graeme Loh, who leads the Catlins study -which is part of wider mohua research- said mohua often nested 16-20m up in beech trees.
This lower-than-usual nest provided DOC with the chance of sharing with the community what the chicks looked like, and conveying DOC's efforts to better understand and protect the birds, Mr Loh said.
Unfortunately, the day after the photographs were taken, the chicks and their mother had disappeared, and the chicks had almost certainly been killed by a predator.
Rats often lived in holes in trees, and stoats could also climb trees.
'We certainly felt it as a personal set-back.
"But we need to keep the big picture in mind," he said.
DOC's mohua recovery efforts involved "looking after thousands of birds, not just individual nests".
DOC staff were still working on their latest Catlins study but realised that mohua in the area were having a "good year", with numbers recovering from earlier predator problems.
One nest in the study had failed, two other nests still had to be checked, but the others had resulted in successful rearing of young birds.
Introduced predators had to be kept in check in order to protect the mohua. Rat numbers had earlier been reduced by a poisoning programme in the area in 2009.
• Doc staff have brought the nest back to Dunedin and will analyse the nest to see if the predator can be identified.
