Trail camera captures owl's savagery

Nature’s savagery has been captured by a trail camera monitoring a wrybill/ngutu pare nest along the Ashley-Rakahuri River near Rangiora.

The revelation of an owl stealing a chick came after Ashley-Rakahuri Rivercare Group operations manager Grant Davey who found the nest belonging to BWBW and his partner (Mrs BWBW) empty last Thursday.

He checked the trail camera footage to see what happened to the eggs, which were due to hatch last Sunday, with the footage initially showing BWBW sitting on one egg with a newly hatched chick.

But then comes the images of a german/little owl leaning over the nest, grabbing the squawking chick and flying off with it before returning to steal the egg.

Although earlier trail camera footage shows this pair of wrybills tenaciously defending their nest, they had no chance with the much bigger German/little owl, a predatory species imported into New Zealand between 1906 and 1910 specifically to kill small introduced birds that were becoming a pest in grain and fruit crops.

The loss of a chick and an egg is a setback for BWBW which has been coming to the Ashley-Rakahuri River to nest and raise chicks for at least 17 years, and was the first wrybill seen along the river this breeding season.

However, it is a constant reality faced by the Ashley-Rakahuri Rivercare Group’s volunteers who got together in 1999 ‘‘to try and reverse the decline in numbers of the unique birds that breed along the river’’.

The concern is now that the owl may have taken BWBW also as he hasn’t been seen since the incident

‘‘It is unusual that he didn't come back to the nest in the morning (after the owl attack),’’ Grant says.

‘‘Last year when he lost eggs to a cat he was back with his mate quite early in the morning.’’

However, Grant believes that if BWBW wasn't taken by the owl he will ‘‘almost certainly’’ nest again, and close by.

‘‘If he is successful with his second nest, this loss won't be that great.

‘‘I have seen this sort of thing, but with rats, cats or harriers the culprit, lots of times now.

‘‘But it is always hard to watch, particularly with an individual bird that you get to know to a certain extent.

‘‘I feel for the birds that looked after their eggs for a month and now they have to start again.

‘‘Usually when this happens they keep coming back to the nest for about a day — probably can't really believe what has happened.’’