Robins are here

We now have North Island Robins at Shakespear Open Sanctuary.

Many happy volunteers and Sossi members watched 20 robins released on Friday 8th April. This represented the end of the first stage of the translocation of North Island Robins to Shakespear Open Sanctuary.

These robins were translocated from Mangatutu in the central North Island.  This  process began with  two pre- capture feeding trips by volunteers exploring three different tracks within the Mangatutu Ecological Area, assessing the numbers of robins and enticing them from their tree roosts to feed on mealworms.   On the final trip they were enticed into traps, weighed and tagged and placed into special transfer boxes which had been built by more volunteers at Shakespear.

Then a quick trip back to Shakespear for their release in the NZ Defence area near the end of the Peninsula, as far from the fence as possible.  The robins have already dispersed widely and should disperse even more when an0ther 20 arrive from Tiritiri Matangi later in May