New Zealand Part 2: Westland Petrel Flying High

Other than kiwis (following post) I was keen to catch up with a few other NZ birds I’d missed during my previous 6 or 7 visits to the country. One is an endemic breeding seabird, the Westland Petrel, which is an occasional visitor to Australian waters but one I’d missed on multiple pelagics. We had a few days in the delightful town of Punikaiki with its dramatic coastal scenery (below) and abundance of forest.

The petrels breed nowhere but in a 4km stretch of forest at elevations at between 50 and 250m within a couple of kilometres of the coast south of Punikaiki (below).

I positioned myself by Coast Road 5km south of the town at sunset near Scotsman Creek. The birds fly over here to reach their nests in the Te Ara Taiko Reserve after dark. About half an hour after sunset, between 50 and 70 petrels duly flew over at varying heights. Although getting dark they were clearly large, all dark Procellaria petrels. These birds are winter breeders and chicks are only just beginning to fledge now; many more birds fly over earlier in the breeding season.

While waiting for the petrels I saw a Shining Bronze-Cuckoo of the NZ-breeding nominate subspecies.

Although ticked, I was keen for more petrel encounters. Bruce Menteath runs petrel-viewing tours on his property which accommodates a couple of the 36 sub-colonies spread over a breeding area of 8 square kilometres. I met Bruce at sunset and walked the 200 stairs to a viewing platform used by petrels as a launching pad for returning to sea after feeding chicks. Bruce explained that birds usually land within 1 square metre of a favoured landing site and walk from there for 10-20 metres to the nest. Unfortunately we failed to see any adult birds – which was highly unusual - but Bruce showed me a well-developed chick in its burrow (below) on the way down. He refuses to accept payment if he fails to show clients an adult bird.

About 4000 petrels breed in the area and the total population is estimated at 10,000, so the birds appear to be holding their own. Locals do their bit by turning off street lights when newly fledged youngsters are at risk from vehicle and street lamp strike.

Other endemic NZ birds doing well around Punikaiki included Weka, which appeared to be everywhere. The species is one of the problem predators of petrel chicks and eggs. Weka (adult with chick below) on the trip generally were much more numerous than during my past visits to NZ, and were absurdly tame.

Grey Gerygone was abundant, as was the NZ Grey Fantail.

The charismatic Tui was all over the place.

So was the friendly Tomtit.

Two endemic ducks, NZ Scaup and Paradise Shelduck, were widespread and common, while Glenn saw a Blue Duck fly over at Arthur’s Pass, which we visited before Punakaiki and after arriving in Christchurch.

Variable Oystercatcher is common along the coast.

A thriving colony of White-fronted Terns can be enjoyed at close quarters at the Pancake Rocks south of Punakaiki.

After visiting Punikaiki and Picton (the subject of another post to come) we crossed from the South Island to the North Island across Cook Strait on the Islander ferry. I knew that at this time of year, Westland Petrels are quite common in Cook Strait and I saw several from the boat’s deck. Although quite distant, a couple were close enough for half-decent images (first and last in this post) and to clearly see the diagnostic bill features in the field.

New Zealand Part 1: On the hunt for Great Spotted and Little Spotted Kiwis

The five species of kiwi endemic to New Zealand have long been among my favourite birds. Unlike so many NZ birds, all five have managed to survive the predations of stoats and other introduced pests, although their populations are seriously depleted. Intervention by the NZ Department of Conservation and dedicated community-based conservation organisations has been instrumental in bringing kiwis back from the brink. I had previously had fantastic encounters with the North Island Brown and Okarito Brown Kiwis and wrote about them in articles about wildlife conservation in NZ for The Bulletin magazine and The Weekend Australian newspaper. I’ve just returned from a three-week trip to NZ with my partner Glenn where I hoped to do the same with two more species: the Great Spotted and Little Spotted Kiwis.

I started the hunt by heading out at night around Arthur’s Pass (above) high in the mountains of the South Island to listen and look for Great Spotted Kiwi, which is restricted to the island’s north-west. I heard a male calling briefly near the village but it was not interested in playback. More co-operative was a flock of Kea the next morning in the village centre (below).

We headed west of Arthur’s Pass to meet up with Kristy Owens and George Nicholas from the Paparoa Wildlife Trust, which is doing a magnificent job expanding the Great Spotted Kiwi population through a captive breeding and release program. Young birds are held in a 12ha forested “creche” near Atarau surrounded by a predator-proof fence until they are about 12 months old, when they are large enough to fend off stoats and other predators -which remain a threat to eggs and young birds – and can be released into the wild in the Paparoa Range of the west coast. A year after release, about 85% of birds are doing well.

Five birds were in the creche at the time of our visit, each weighing about 1.2 kilos and therefore almost ready for release. We radio-tracked one bird which leapt from cover and eluded us. Eventually we tracked down another kiwi (above) which Kristy gently extracted from a burrow it was sharing with a second bird. After weighing, measurements and other checks (below), the bird was taken back to the burrow.

Satisfactory as this encounter was, I was hopeful of further meetings with wild kiwis. We moved on to the west coast town of Punakaiki. I headed off at night to a well-known kiwi hotspot – Paparoa National Park, and Bullock Creek Road (below) which leads to it. Over several hours I heard a male and a female calling from the Inland Pack Track in the park and another male calling from the roadside. Then I saw a kiwi briefly before it disappeared in thick undergrowth. I heard 3 other male kiwis calling at different sites: on the main road south of Punakaiki where the Westland Petrel colony is located; on a nearby private property where petrels nest; and at the Waikori Road end of the Inalnd Pack Track. All up I saw 1 wild Great Spotted Kiwi and three others in the creche, and heard a total of 7 birds in different places, suggesting their population locally is not doing too badly.

We left the South Island for Wellington where I hoped to see the Little Spotted Kiwi on the 225ha Zealandia Ecosanctuary on the city’s outskirts. The reserve is owned by Zealandia, another private community group doing excellent work in the never-ending battle to protect NZ’s endangered wildlife. Described as the first reserve of its kind on the main islands, Zealandia is surrounded by a 8.6km predator-proof fence (below).

The project has reintroduced 18 species of wildlife back into the area, several of which had long been absent from the NZ mainland. Some, like the Kaka (below), had become extremely rare in the Wellington area but are now common thanks to the nesting and feeding haven provided by Zealandia.

Among the reintroductions is the Little Spotted Kiwi. About 150 kiwis thrive in the reserve (below) and the public has the chance to see one during guided nocturnal tours. I joined a tour and found it somewhat frustrating; more than half the time was during daylight and twilight hours, focusing on animals that can be more easily seen during the day. Our guides didn’t seem to be overly interested in locating kiwis.

Eventually, while watching semi-nocturnal Brown Teal moving up a streamline, I heard a rustle at my feet, looked down with my pencil torch, and there was a kiwi less than a metre away. It scratched about as it walked across my feet and a nearby track. By the time the rest of the group got on to it, the bird was moving away; these images were the best I could manage with the compulsory red filters on the guide’s torches. The guide was talking so much it was not possible to track what the kiwi was doing, but a memorable experience nonetheless.

Eastern Grass Owl on the decline around the Sunshine Coast

The Eastern Grass Owl is regarded generally as scarce in Australia. In south-east Queensland it is restricted to tall grassland in coastal areas, often interspersed with sugar cane plantations. The Sunshine Coast is arguably the stronghold of the species in the region. Birds here are concentrated in the grasslands and plantations of the Maroochy River floodplain, and in isolated areas of wallum heath.

Since moving to the Sunshine Coast in 2009, I have noticed a clear and sharp decline in numbers of Eastern Grass Owl locally. They were once resident in Yandina Creek Wetland and along the adjoining River Road but I’ve not detected them there during recent surveys. Across the Maroochy River in the vicinity of Burtons Road near Bli Bli, I was aware of three pairs in different places on private property, to which I had access with permission from owners. This population is much reduced and any birds remaining are no longer nesting, as they had in the past.

A few birds remain elsewhere on the floodplain, where the images in this post were taken recently, but overall the population continues to decline. Records from wallum heath in Noosa and Mooloolah River National Parks were always few but there has been just one (in Mooloolah River NP) in recent years to my knowledge.

One of the great local conservation initiatives – by the Sunshine Coast Council, Unitywater and the Queensland Government – in recent years has been the establishment of the so-called Blue Heart. About 1000 hectares of wetland (including Yandina Creek Wetland) and adjoining properties have been acquired and protected as reserves north of the Maroochy River. Unfortunately the project does not extend south of the river, where most of the populations of Eastern Grass Owl and other scarce grassland and wetland species occur.

The new runway at Sunshine Coast Airport destroyed one of the finest grassland areas, which was occupied by two pairs of Eastern Grass Owl, as well as some of the last remnants of wallum heath surviving on the Sunshine Coast outside national parks. The cane farms in the Burton Road area are being subdivided by the council (above and below), although the land is highly flood-prone. In the past, cane farmers rotated areas of land under cane and grassland, allowing the owls and other wildlife to move around and survive. Now, much less cane is grown and grasses are cut by new landowners. Those small areas left uncut are overcome with weeds as well as Allocasuarina and Melaleuca trees. Consequently, most habitat suitable for the Eastern Grass Owl and other species is gone and what remains is shrinking. On top of all this, the Sunshine Coast is one of Australia's fastest growing regions with ever growing vehicle traffic. Several road-killed grass owls have been picked up around the Maroochy River floodplain.

POSTSCRIPT The ABC Sunshine Coast put this story up online about the issues discussed above.

Buff-breasted Buttonquail: An image claimed to be of this species revealed

A previously unpublished image above and below (cropped) is claimed by north Queensland naturalists John Young and Lloyd Nielsen to be a Buff-breasted Buttonquail. It was taken at a secret site late last year on a camera trap in north Queensland where Young claims to have encountered Buff-breasted and Painted Buttonquail together, along with the nests of both species.

As I reported last week - in the following post on this blog and in the pages of The Weekend Australian - Young published an image earlier this year of what he said was a Painted BQ on its nest at this site, labelling it on Facebook: “Male Painted Buttonquail brooding eggs on nest Number 5 after a serious search for breeding sites over the past few weeks.” When that image is “flipped” or inverted, however, it is clear the nest is the same as one in an image published in 2018 that Young claimed to be that of a Buff-breasted BQ at Brooklyn, a different site. The composite below shows the many features common to nests in the two images. In response to this publication, Young and Nielsen, who have launched a public appeal for funds to aid Young’s research at the secret site, directed a torrent of personal abuse at me - referring to me as "subhuman" and plenty more in similar vein - but neither denied its substance.

Following this report, much discussion ensued about what happened to multiple images of Buff-breasted BQ claimed to have been taken by Young at his new site. Young showed me the camera trap image on his phone during a visit to my home (below) last December. At the time I was initially impressed; the bird looked different and did not appear to me to be a Painted BQ. However, I was concerned that key facial features, especially eye colour, were obscured in the image and therefore I could not be certain. Young was insistent that I publicly agree with his identification and I did so after receiving an iron-clad assurance that he had other images showing the key missing features. My request to retain a copy of the image was denied.

As I freely admit, that was a mistake on my part. I subsequently looked again at the image on a bigger screen on Nielsen’s home computer, and considered buttonquail identification material from various sources. Those included notes published recently by Patrick Webster about plumage phases not previously known for Painted BQ, and useful commentary from my friend Chris Corben, an astute observer of the finer features of feathers. It seems likely this image in fact depicts a Painted BQ (below). The rump and upper tail of a Buff-breasted BQ should be sandy-rufous rather than brownish-grey. The relative absence of dark bars on the upperparts of Buff-breasted BQ suggest the species should be more sandy-rufous than Painted BQ. I discussed this in a previous blog post: https://sunshinecoastbirds.blogspot.com/2021/12/painted-or-buff-breasted-buttonquail-in.html

The claimed image of BBBQ is one of what Young insisted was a collection of 17 images taken from camera traps at the time. What happened to the others? They have not surfaced. Young (below, at his new site) said publicly they would be kept in safe hands by himself and Nielsen, until a joint paper they are working on about the Buff-breasted BQ is complete.

To my surprise, when I saw him in December, Nielsen said he was shown just the single image – the one featured in this post. Young claims more recently to have taken further images. He has furnished an unknown number of these in the form of colour prints on paper to Nielsen and others. One friend, Alwyn Simple, described the eyes of a bird in one print as “large milky yellow” and not the red eyes of a Painted BQ; below is a composite showing these differences.

Nielsen says he is “100 percent” convinced the latest images are that of Buff-breasted BQ. He initially said the earlier camera trap image was also “100 per cent” a Buff-breasted BQ; when I asked why, he referred to its “uniform and plain” tail and “streaky, dark” wing pattern. Later, Nielsen said that “perhaps I should have said 80 percent”. Last week on Facebook, Nielsen seemed to be having second thoughts about the adequacy of images produced to date, saying: “We need to get good high quality photographs...” and “we are hoping to get high res images this coming breeding season”. The waiting game continues and like many others, I would be delighted if these images eventually emerge. Nonetheless, it is curious that among the many BBBQ nests supposedly found over several decades, not a single image of a bird on a nest has surfaced, when organising this at night especially should not be difficult. In anticipation of further personal vitriol as a consequence of this post, I have no intention of personally attacking Young nor Nielsen but am endeavouring to stick to facts which should be in the public arena.

It's worth recalling what John Young said on 28 November last year when he found the image that kicked off this thread: "I had 3 camera traps set up on 3 different hills about a kilometre apart and today I finally got a chance to go through the images, some 3000+ on the last camera trap. Half way through I became absolutely speechless..there in full colour taking up nearly a quarter of the frame was an image that I have only dreamt about. A huge Buff Breasted Button Quail!!! Lloyd and I just looked in astonishment as this was not the only image, I got a third bird also. Lloyd and I almost had tears running down our face. We have both worked so hard to get this thing and now..WE HAVE GOT THEM...WOW WOW WOW. I have them in 2 locations now a kilometre apart. EXCITING I have everything on 3 harddrives that are hidden away, " To which Lloyd Nielsen (below) added: "Wow! Absolutely mind blowing. First authentic colour pictures of a Buff-breasted Button-quail ever taken! Such an accomplishment! I knew John would pull it off!"

Buff-breasted Buttonquail: Smoke & Mirrors

What follows is a transcript of my story in today’s edition of The Weekend Australian (2-3 July, 2022). The first three images in this blog post are central to the story. The first image is of a nest taken by John Young at Brooklyn in north Queensland, published in 2018 and claimed to be that of a Buff-breasted Buttonquail. The second image is of a Painted Buttonquail on a nest taken by Young at a different, undisclosed site where he says he has also photographed Buff-breasted Buttonquails and their nests; this was published last January. The third image is the second one “flipped” or inverted, so what appears on the left in the second image now appears on the right, and vice versa. When this image is compared with the first one from Brooklyn, many similarities are obvious, suggesting they are the same nest. The fourth image is a composition by Clive Hallam pinpointing some similar features.

QUAIL’S FLIGHT OF FANCY Queensland Government authorities are refusing to classify the most mysterious and rare bird in Australia as “critically endangered” although its own experts conclude it may already be extinct. A row over the fate of the buff-breasted buttonquail, a small ground bird found only in the woodlands of Queensland’s Cape York, erupted as doubts emerged over the authenticity of photographs claimed to be the first ever images of the buttonquail and its nest. The bird is the only one of the estimated 900 bird species recorded from Australia for which there are no verified photographs. State authorities believe numerous sightings of the buttonquail – especially a spate of recent reports by prominent north Queensland naturalists John Young and Lloyd Nielsen – rule out the need to classify the bird as Critically Endangered, a status that would generate funds and management plans to save the species.

However, University of Queensland scientists studying the bird told authorities that many or all the sightings are questionable or baseless because of confusion by observers with a closely related but much more common species - the painted buttonquail. An expert team from the university’s Recovery of Threatened Species group says the buff-breasted species has not been reliably seen for 100 years, when the naturalist William McLennan found birds in the Coen area of Cape York in 1922. The team headed by PhD student Patrick Webster has not found a trace of the bird during four years of intensive surveys across Cape York.

Young was propelled to international fame in 2013 when he took the first photographs of a night parrot, regarded then as the country’s rarest bird. Nielsen is a well-known natural history author and a recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to conservation. After his parrot discovery, Young was employed as an ecologist by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy to study both the night parrot and the buff-breasted buttonquail.

Young (above) claimed to see 25 buff-breasted buttonquail and find nine nests between 2016 and 2018 at Brooklyn, an AWC-owned property near Mt Carbine in north Queensland, in addition to multiple sightings in other places since the 1970s. He also claimed numerous night parrot records from north-west Queensland and South Australia. Young left the AWC when doubts surfaced about some of his parrot records. A 2019 inquiry by the agency found those records were false or questionable, with the likelihood that eggs on one nest in Young’s images were fake. Young and Nielsen have since focused attention on the buttonquail, launching a public appeal recently for donations for research at a secret new north Queensland site where Young claims to have found the bird. The AWC in 2018 published an image taken by Young, claimed to be one of the first of a buff-breasted buttonquail nest; it contained eggs. The agency also published what it said were the first images of the buttonquail itself, photographed in flight (below), but ornithologists concluded they were of such poor quality that the bird could not be identified.

Last January, Young published on social media an image of a nest with a painted buttonquail in it which, he said, was part of a collaborative effort by him and Nielson to compile a detailed publication about the birds, including comparisons between the two buttonquail species. Young said the image demonstrated how differences between the nests of buff-breasted and painted buttonquails are “like chalk and cheese” (see his post below). But critics believe the photographs depict the same nest.

Forensic photography expert and RMIT University professor Gale Spring said metadata containing dates and other information were removed from the two images, so he could not be certain they are the same nests. However, “there are some landmark similarities between the egg photo and the bird photo that support the proposition that the two photographs are of the same nest”. Young dismissed as “crazy” any suggestion that the images depicted the same nest. “They are two totally different nests,” Young said, declining to comment further. However, his colleague Nielsen (below) said the nests appeared to be the same, pointing to an identical small white stone in both imaes: “I can’t imagine how John made the mistake. He knows the buff-breasted buttonquail well.”

Respected wildlife researcher Chris Corben said there are many features common to the two images : “It is evident to me that it is the same nest .” Young has not photographed buff-breasted buttonquails in any of the nests he claims to have discovered, although scientists say this is often possible by approaching the nests at night or setting up camera traps. Webster and his team were given the GPS co-ordinates for Young’s sites at Brooklyn by the AWC and searched them thoroughly, spotting only numerous painted buttonquail. Young claimed late last year to have taken multiple photographs of a buff-breasted buttonquail at his new site. None were released publicly. Some ornithologists who saw one image say it is likely a painted buttonquail. Although Queensland authorities dismissed the need for action to protect the species, two of their own experts sit on a national panel of scientific experts who conclude in a newly published paper that it is one of 16 wildlife species where there are no recent verifiable records, with a greater than 50 per cent chance they are already extinct. A Queensland Department of Environment and Science spokesperson said the application to upgrade the buttonquail’s status was deferred because of the need for “further information justifying discounting some records and inconsistencies with recent publications”.

Asked about its experts believing the bird may be extinct, while at the same time declining to change its status, the department said : “There was no overlap of experts on the two processes and the processes involved differ and had different objectives.” University of Queensland professor James Watson, who is overseeing the buttonquail research, said Webster’s team had carefully assessed numerous buff-breasted buttonquail reports. Watson said there had been unsubstantiated sightings in recent years: “These observations when investigated have no substance and have continued to contaminate the record.” The failure to list the bird as Critically Endangered means “it is very difficult to get any traction with practical, on-ground conservation actions.” The university team last week submitted a fresh submission to the department seeking a status upgrade for the species. Nielsen said that unlike himself and Young, doubters and “so-called scientific experts” had never seen a buff-breasted buttonquail and were in no position to pass judgement on the sightings of others. Extensive modification of the Cape York woodlands by changed fire management and cattle grazing has drastically reduced populations of several bird species and is likely responsible for the demise of the buff-breasted buttonquail. Young, with Nielsen’s support, claimed in 2006 to have discovered a new species of parrot in south-east Queensland – the blue-browed fig-parrot. The Queensland Government was forced to withdraw its support for the claim when investigations by The Australian cast doubt on the authenticity of an image of the bird.

END OF STORY: POSTSCRIPT. When photographs are “flipped” or inverted, they are mirror images of the original photographs. Why do photographers sometimes do this? You would have to ask them. The image below of a Masked Owl in north Queensland was taken by John Young and published in 2018.

The next image is also of a Masked Owl taken by John Young in north Queensland and published last March.