A bird in the hand
You‟ll use eight of the videos on your DVD in this unit where the focus is on the recovery
and protection of five very special birds – the takahe, kakapo, Chatham Island black
robin, kokako and the Northern Royal albatross.
Each video can also be found on the DOC or TVNZ website and the link to video is part
found in the learning activities. Videos used are:
Takahe Champion
Takahe release
Saving the kakapo
Black Robin
The man who saved the black robin
Kokako
Kokako translocation ( Bringing kokako back to their ancestral home.)
Toroa (The Northern Royal Albatross)
You‟ll also find links to websites and learning tools which provide practical activities to
develop your students‟ knowledge and skills. Background information is also provided
within the learning activities and the answers are there too.
Years: 7, 8 and 9
Levels: 3 and 4
Science Achievement objective
Living world
Students will:
(Ecology)
Explain how living things are suited to their particular habitat and how they respond to
environmental changes both natural and human induced.
Social Studies supporting achievement objective
Understand how people participate individually and collectively in response to
community challenges.
Technology supporting achievement objective
Explain the nature of an intended outcome explaining how it addresses the need or
opportunity.
Learning outcomes
Students will:
1. Explain how the adaptive features of some of New Zealand‟s most endangered
birds are now contributing to their downfall.
2. Complete a chart to show what knowledge, skills and actions a species recovery
programme needs and the reasons behind such actions.
3. Use story board techniques to plan a short video that provides a useful snapshot
of a takahe recovery programme.
4. Choose the best ongoing recovery plan for a critically endangered bird from a list
of options by considering the consequences of each option.
5. Design a technological system that could help solve a problem that is putting
endangered birds at risk.
Assessment activity
Choose from the activities in the unit.
Teaching and Learning Activities
Starter 1
Introduced predators, hunting and fire have decimated New Zealand‟s bird populations.
Share the story below with your students without telling them the name of the bird. It‟s
the huia.
Sir Walter Buller, who had been brought up in New Zealand and became extremely
knowledgeable about New Zealand birds, wrote this story in 1867 during a search for a
very special bird.
We heard her soft flute-note in the wooded gully far beneath us. One of our native
companions at once imitated the call, and in a few seconds a pair of beautiful birds, male
and female, appeared in the branches near us. They remained gazing at us only for a
few instants, and then started off up the hill, moving by a succession of hops, often along
the ground, the male generally leading. Waiting until he could get both birds in a line, my
friend at length pulled trigger….
Decide in class why the birds were shot and then share the poem on this Who am I?
Students can then use the clues to work out which bird it is. When they think they have
the right bird, check terranature. http://www.terranature.org/extinctBirds.htm
Discuss likely reasons for other New Zealand birds becoming extinct and read some of
the examples on terranature again to find out more about those extinct birds.
http://www.terranature.org/extinctBirds.htm
Starter 2
The takahe
Watch Takehe Champion and see what Sophie‟s doing to help save a species that could
have joined New Zealand‟s extinct bird list. It shows how one young person met a
challenge and made a difference.
After the video, list these things in class:
The need Sophie recognised,
The mission she set herself that she believed would help the takehe,
The questions she probably needed answered as she began her investigation
Her solution which in the end helped the takahe.
In groups have the students compile a „high five‟ bird list – five of New Zealand‟s native
birds that they think may have needed human intervention to help ensure their survival.
Add the challenge of listing birds from different habitats- e.g. the forest, coast, wetlands,
fast flowing rivers, tussock country, high country.
Share the lists as a class, compile a master list and circle the five birds we‟ll focus on
through the videos - the takehe, kokako, kakapo, black robin and Royal Northern
albatross.
Explain that all these birds have suffered, then benefited by human intervention. The
same groups can choose one of the birds and from what they already know, they should
list:
A need
A mission that could be done that might possibly help the bird.
Some questions that would have to be answered first- the investigation
A likely solution.
Collect these ideas for later use. After seeing the videos the students‟ ideas may
change.
3. Takahe were thought to be extinct until rediscovered in 1948. They‟re ground nesting
birds so like the kiwi that lose 90% of their chicks in the wild, takahe chicks are also easy
prey for stoats.
Before you watch the video Takahe Release, touch on these things in class:
What are the different habitats for New Zealand‟s native birds?
What special adaptations do our birds have for:
- Flight? (Think of fantails, hawks and albatross.)
- Swimming and diving? (e.g. ducks‟ oily and waterproof cover and penguin
feathers which become a sleek fine fur)
- Hunting and feeding? (e.g. sharp talons, curved beaks to tear flesh or short sharp
beaks for feeding on seeds.)
What physical adaptations do the flightless birds like takahe have? (Study the
photo) http://www.nzbirds.com/birds/takahe.html
Have takahe adapted in any way to the presence of new enemies like stoats?
Takahe were thought to be extinct but were rediscovered in 1948. What might be
the reason behind a small population surviving?
4. Watch Takahe release - it‟s an episode on your DVD. Get your students to look for
three things as they watch:
The suitability of the place the Takahe chicks grew up in. (It‟s on Tiritiri Matangi,
a predator free island.) http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/meet-the-locals-
videos/third-series/tiritiri-matangi/
The unique habitat these birds are being introduced into.
The teacher the chicks needed in their new home.
Discuss those questions in class after viewing the video and then decide how important
the intervention is for the survival of takahe.
5. The core population of takahe is found in the Murchison Mountains, an area that‟s
seen a summer plague of stoats. The amount of land trapped will increase from 15,000
to 50,000 hectares so this makes this recovery programme a huge operation.
Action for Recovery will help students link the groups, their skills and actions required if
an operation like this is to succeed.
Try the activity in groups and then “jigsaw”. Get each person in the group to move to a
different group to share ideas. Discuss the findings in class.
6. The kakapo
The Kakapo Recovery Plan is a joint partnership between DOC and Forest and Bird.
The catch cry on their website is:
6 billion people on earth
Only 124 kakapo
Time is critical
Share the catch cry with your students and get them to design a home page for a
Kakapo Recovery Plan web site. The aim is not for a work of art but content and design
that will grab people, inform them and get them involved. Work in small groups sketching
the design on a large sheet of paper.
Their home page needs:
A headline and attention grabbing subtitle
A picture (Show its location and describe the photo you would put there)
The page link buttons that clearly show what will be found on the pages.
The front page feature that shows in a creative way, what people in the field are
doing to help.
Share the ideas in class and then introduce the actual Kakapo Recovery Plan website.
7. Use the Kakapo Recovery Plan website now.
Students should research one of the bullet pointed aspects below and present an oral
report to the class. Together they will build knowledge of kakapo, the recovery
programme and the people that make it work.
From Then and Now
Iwi perspective
Decline and Turning the tide
Codfish Island and Anchor Island
From Meet the Kakapo
Breeding
Getting Around and Behaviour
Life Cycle
From Meet the People
The National Kakapo team - focus on the skills they have.
From What we do
Intensive monitoring
Health checks
Predator control
Supplementary feeding
Artificial Incubation and hand feeding
Research 1 Kakapo genetic studies (tricky!)
Research 2 Supplementary feeding
Technology 1 The nest kit
Technology 2 The snark
8. Now that your students are experts, get small groups to design a storyboard for a 4
minute Meet the Locals video at Codfish Island. Which bits would they include? Which
bits would they leave out if they wanted to provide the best possible snapshot of the
kakapo recovery programme?
This video planner will help.
9. Now watch the Meet the Locals episode- Saving the Kakapo It‟s an episode on your
DVD http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/meet-the-locals-videos/fourth-
series/saving-the-kakapo/
10. The Chatham Islands Black Robin
While the kakapo recovery is amazing, the Chatham Islands Black Robin came even
closer to extinction. By 1980 there were only five birds left in the world. Two of these
were females and only one produced fertile eggs.
Locate the Chathams Island area with this distribution map of the black robin. It‟s on
page 6 of this recovery plan.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/documents/science-and-technical/TSRP40.pdf
Discuss how the black robins were once found on all the islands.
By 1872 when the species was first encountered by European observers it had
already disappeared from Chatham Island.
For several decades prior to the species dramatic rescue in 1976 the whole of
the world‟s black robin population was on Tapuaenuku (Little Mangere), a tiny
cliff bound island in the Chathams.
Black Robins are currently on two small islands- Mangere and Rangitira ( South
East island.
Try Match the threats. This activity looks at how numbers got so low with a focus on how
the little bird‟s way of life was so easily threatened by the trimmings of human
settlement.
11. Watch the Meet the Locals video Black Robin. It‟s one of the episodes on your DVD.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/meet-the-locals-videos/fifth-series/black-robin/
Get the students to look for two key things:
Why Little Mangere was the only island with black robins by 1970.
How Wildlife staff managed to build the population from 5 in 1980 to over 250 by
2000.
Discuss those two points after watching the video.
12. In groups and on large pieces of paper students can draw a flow chart of the early
stages of the black robin recovery plan but share this information too.
Members of Forest and Bird helped buy Mangere Island and plant 12,000 trees
there so the black robin would have a healthier forest home.
At first, Chatham Island warblers were used as foster parents, but they couldn‟t
keep up with the feeding when the chicks hatched. Tomtits made far better foster
parents.
Unfortunately the young black robins started to think they were tomtits! They
sang tomtit songs and didn‟t pair with other black robins.
The young birds were returned to the black robin nest for the last few days of
living in the nest… to learn to behave like black robins should!
Look here to see a Tomtit feeding black robin chicks!
http://www.kcc.org.nz/birds/blackrobin.asp
13. Get to know Old Blue, the common ancestor of every black robin alive today, through
the eyes of Don Merton, the man who set up the recovery programme for the Chatham
Island black robin.
Study the consequences of each of the “remarkable” and “lucky” things that happened.
Decide if the Chatham Island black robin would still be around today if any one of these
events did not happen.
14. Now watch The man who saved the black robin and meet Don Merton.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/meet-the-locals-videos/fourth-series/the-man-
who-saved-the-black-robin/
And here‟s Don Merton catching a black robin.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/TheBush/Conservation/ConservationAHistory/7/ENZ-
Resources/Standard/4/en
15. By 1999, 254 black robins were alive. What next for the black robin looks at three
options for the next stage of the recovery plan. Using choices and proposed actions from
DOC‟s actual recovery plan students consider the options and consequences of actions
and choose the option they would follow.
Discuss these words before you start:
revegetation ( A new forest derived in part from the planting of 120,000 rooted
cuttings taken from local stock, is regenerating on Mangere Island)
consequences
monitoring
(Answer: DOC chose option B. Black robins currently live on Rangatira (South East)
Island and Mangere Island in the Chatham Islands group. Attempts made to establish
another population in a fenced convenant on Pitt Island have failed, possibly due to
competition for food with introduced mice. You can find DOC‟s whole recovery plan here.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/native-animals/birds/land-birds/black-robin/facts
16. Kokako
In Maori mythology it was the kokako that brought Maui water when he fought the sun.
The kōkako filled its wattles with water and brought it to Maui. His thirst quenched, Maui
rewarded the kōkako by making its legs long and slender, enabling the bird to bound
through the forest with ease in search of food.
Tell the class the story - here‟s one version of Maui and the sun and then share the part
the kokako played in the story.
Discuss how this adaptation for life in the forest, bounding through the trees rather than
flying left the kokako vulnerable as soon as ship rats arrived.
http://www.connovation.co.nz/rodents.html These excellent climbers do more damage to
the forest than Norway rats.
17. Find out more about the kokako by watching the kokako video. It‟s one of the
episodes on your DVD.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/meet-the-locals-videos/first-series/kokako/
Pukaha - Mt Bruce has an intensive trapping programme in place. There‟s a small
predator proof fence to protect the takahe chicks but there is not a fence around the
whole area. Discuss this in groups and see if the students can come up with the reasons
why the Mt Bruce area isn‟t surrounded by a fence.
Answer: Restoring threatened wildlife to mainland New Zealand can‟t be done on a
large scale by protecting them behind predator proof fences. At Mt Bruce it‟s been
possible to successfully reintroduce species that were once locally extinct.
This is an important conservation education message and New Zealanders are doing
this right around the country. Let‟s look at another example.
18. Nga Whenua Rahui is a government fund that can be used for conservation projects
that will protect indigenous ecosystems on Maori land. http://www.doc.govt.nz/getting-
involved/landowners/nga-whenua-rahui/nga-whenua-rahui-fund
Ngapukeariki is one such project- a mainland Island managed in partnership with Nga
Whenua Rahui and the landowners represented by the Mangaroa/Ohotu Trust.
It‟s part of the Mangaroa/Ohotu covenant, 60 kilometres east of Opotiki. The local iwi is
Te Whanau a Apanui and the total protected area is 1,300ha.
The aim of this project is to restore the area by reducing the numbers of pests and
reintroducing species that have disappeared. In 2005, 18 kokako were released into
Ngapukeariki, near Omaio.
Watch the kokako translocation video http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/meet-the-
locals-videos/fifth-series/kokako/
As they watch, ask the class to think about the things that must have been done before
the kokako were released.
Kokako come home shows the students the solutions the Mangaroa/Ohotu Trust found
that eventally saw kokako back in their lands. By listing some possible outcomes or
consequences for each solution the students should gain a good understanding of this
conservation process.
19. Toroa - The Northern Royal Albatross
Lastly we look at an amazing seabird, the endangered Royal Northern Albatross.
With a wingspan of up to 3.2 metres, the northern royal albatross is one of the world's
largest flying birds.
The majority breed on Forty-Fours and Big and Little Sister Islands in the Chatham
Islands group. They also breed on Enderby Island in the Auckland Islands and Taiaroa
Heads on the Otago Peninsula. The Meet the Locals video examines the work done
here.
These seabirds usually pair for life and if successful have chicks every two years. Mated
pairs use the same nest site from season to season and they‟ll usually return to their
breeding grounds between mid-October and mid-November. There, a month later, the
female lays her single egg.
The chick emerges after 79 days incubation and the young fledges 240 days later from
September to October the following year.
The Northern Royal Albatross can live for more than 60 years and they return to their
natal colony at four to eight years of age. They don‟t start breeding however until they‟re
at least nine years old.
Watch the Toroa video taking note of two things:
The features of the habitat the albatross nest in and
The tasks the DOC ranger does to ensure the chicks from this endangered
species grow up fit and healthy and ready to fly.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/meet-the-locals-videos/third-series/toroa/
Discuss those two points after the video. The students may have moticed these things:
Albatrosses typically nest on the flat summits of small islands so Taiaroa Heads
has these features. It means when the chick is ready to fly it gets one chance as
it launches itself off the edge.
Checking the nesting birds, their eggs and the chicks are the tasks for the DOC
rangers. These albatrosses are monitored more closely than any other seabird.
The blowflies don‟t stand a chance and the predator control programme for
stoats, rats and cats is probably the oldest in New Zealand.
Design a solution!
The royal's nesting area on the headland is a 'hot spot' - a sheltered area where
summer ground temperatures can reach 50 degrees celsius. This bird is better suited to
sub Antarctic conditions but they chose this place.
In the past though both adults and chicks could die from heat exhaustion but this
problem has been solved. Design the solution with a drawing that fully shows how it
works.
(Answer: There is now a sprinkler system that on hot days sprays water over the nest
to cool the bird.)
20. Northern Royal Albatrosses spend most of their lives at sea. The non breeding birds
live over and on the sea all their lives so they never touch down on land.
Show a series of albatross photographs so students can list the adaptive features for life
at sea. The 13 images on ARCive are good ones.
http://www.arkive.org/northern-royal-albatross/diomedea-sanfordi/biology.html
Some interesting features are:
Albatrosses' nostrils are located along the sides of their bill instead of on top.
This gives them a better sense of smell.
They also have a gland that reduces the salt content in the seawater they drink.
They have a tendon too that allows them to lock their wings in place while gliding.
Check out dynamic soaring too.
http://www.wfu.edu/biology/albatross/atwork/dynamic_soaring.htm
As a class decide how these same features have helped placed this incredible bird on
the endangered list.
Now watch Save the albatross. Just click on the video.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/campaigns/albatross/
21. But wait, there‟s hope! New longline methods used by some fishing boats slash the
chances of seabirds being accidentally hooked.
Get your students to sketch some ideas of their own and then share them in class.
Longline solutions has some ideas if you need to provide some handy hints.
http://www.birdsaustralia.com.au/our-projects/mitigation-measures.html
22. Return the ideas the students came up with for starter activity 2 -their intervention
programmes. Discuss in class whether they would add or change anything.
23. Active involvement- An optional extra
Green up your backyard
Check out your school grounds with How green is your school‟s backyard?
Then, plan to bring a few more native critters into your school‟s backyard.
Just find a backyard space- perhaps around the old incinerator or somewhere!
Find out who might be interested if you change this little space.
What do they think? Work out a way to find out!
Decide: Should we do the whole place or begin with a little bit?
What needs to go?
What need to stay?
What do birds and mini beasts need? E.g. food and places to hide!
What can we put there that will attract native wildlife?
Are there threats like rats and mice?
How can we get rid of them?
What could the final place look like?
Where could we get the things we need?
Draw up some plans.
Show people your ideas.
Ask for feedback and if you can…begin!
Invite the birds over
http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/native-animals/birds/attracting-birds-to-your-
garden/invite-the-birds-over/
and What to plant are two useful resources.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/native-animals/birds/attracting-birds-to-your-
garden/what-to-plant/