This season I’m a hut ranger at Luxmore Hut on the Kepler Track in Fiordland. Some people ask me what it’s like working alone for 8 days at a time. But the truth is, I’m rarely alone. There are plenty of trampers, either arriving at the hut for the night, or passing through on their … Continue reading “The Kea Blues” – a guest piece by Janine Martig
Peak summertime can feel like a wonderful place in the South Island mountains. This year it feels alive, almost burgeoning with young kea fledglings in some places. Twin Stream valley (near Glentanner), for instance, has had a group of at least 12 young kea through January 2020. Some of them are shown in this incredible … Continue reading Summer in the mountains – return of the kea gangs
Here at the Kea Sightings Database, we are honoured to receive dozens of kea sighting contributions every day. We also get lots of folks sending us in brilliant photos of kea in a large range of situations. We rely a LOT on the photos sent in to us by all of you, for using on … Continue reading Photo of the Month (Dec ’19)
The ski season has been upon us for a couple of months now and a range of skifield staff and skiers have been sending in their updates on kea numbers and activity this winter. Things are looking pretty dire at Mt Hutt, with no kea being sighted at all (apart from one kea in the … Continue reading 2018 winter skifield kea update: Craigieburn Range, Mt Hutt and Temple Basin
Our givealittle page expires in a matter of days and we thought it timely to acknowledge all the wonderful generous folks who kindly donated money (through the givealittle page and otherwise) over the past year and a half to get this project off the ground. We could not have done it without all of you … Continue reading A massive thanks to all those who donated to this project
It’s that time of year for us – some of our team are involved in helping out on various kea surveys in the mountains of the South Island throughout most of January with DOC and the Kea Conservation Trust. It’s the time of year when kea are fledging from the nest cavity and flying around … Continue reading Kea teams head into the mountains for January surveys
You may see some wonderful interaction and behavioral displays between individual kea – whether it be chicks begging for food, preening, play fighting or aggressive displays – it’s all fascinating to watch. At this time of year, adult females who are breeding will be sitting on the nest inside a cavity in the forest, keeping … Continue reading Recording interactions between kea
Just a little update on the value of our kea sightings project so far. We’ve only had it all up and running a few months now and we still have lots of modifications to do on the website but in the meantime, it’s been amazing value for effort so far! I just wanted to share … Continue reading Results so far from the Kea Database
After the recent spate of kea deaths around the Arthur’s Pass area, and making the news several times in the past few weeks, DOC have been working with the relevant groups to resolve most of the issues.Temple Basin skifield and Orion have fixed the cables that kea were chewing so that the risk of electrocution … Continue reading Good news for Arthur’s Pass kea
