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18.40

18.51

Sharyn Broni (Ranger, DOC) ModSharyn Broni (Ranger, DOC) Mod
Kia ora koutou (hello everyone)
Back in 2018 GO and WO were the Royalcam pair raising the foster chick Amīria.
View Royalcam highlights of Amīri
They are nesting in view of the Richdale Observatory again this season but are not contenders for this season's Royalcam viewing. (The entire Royalcam cable had to be replaced after that season due to being stretched beyond its capacity. )
GO and WO are now 39 and 43 years old respectively and may end up being the oldest pair breeding at Pukekura this season.
They have fledged 2 of their own chicks since Amīria, who is due back this season.
Returning 5-year-old adolescents generally arrive in December or later in the summer. Amīria and her cohorts will receive an A or B darvic band. The 2-3 colour band system is now gradually being phased out in preference to the much sturdier darvic bands. Replacement bands for any toroa that fledged prior to 2009 will receive a Z combination. A couple of these have been changed over and the ranger team is planning more re-banding after egg laying.
(GT)Sharyn Broni (Ranger, DOC)
Thank you all for your patience at this quiet time on the Royalcam.
Elsewhere in the colony it has not been as quiet as watching the grass grow.
Some eggs are old enough to candle to determine whether they are fertile or not.
Check out this video from 2020 to see how candling an egg at a nest looks.
We will announce eggs laid colony wide later bearing in mind that this is not expected to be a record-breaking season this time around. This is due to the biennial nature of the breeding seasons and the alternating good and not so good seasons.
Another essential task is to set up the irrigation system that keeps the nesting toroa from getting heat stressed in the increasingly hot summers.
We will have an update on the cam move in due course. The live stream will be off while this takes place.
(GT)Sharyn Broni (Ranger, DOC) Mod
Kia ora koutou (hello everyone)
Toroa egg laying has been completed and much candling and laying of irrigation lines has been done.
45 eggs were laid, although 2 are infertile and 1 had broken before the daily ranger check at the nest. This is an expected number for this part of the biennial cycle of toroa breeding.
A new site for the Royalcam has been chosen, we are now working out the logistics of cam moving and upgrading so we have the IR light back for night viewing. We will announce cam moving day as information becomes available. The live stream will be off during the changeover to the new site.
We are sure that it will be worth the wait. The experienced cam pair of LGK and LGL are back at Top Flat having raised Karere in 2019 and Tiaki in 2021.
LGL did not lay an egg last season, so they are out of sync with the biennial breeding cycle. This year LGL laid an egg on the 7th November and it is fertile.
Only a few meters away, one week later, on the 14th November, WYL and BOK also have a fertile egg.
Having 2 nests on view for the whole season is new on Royalcam and will provide more viewing opportunities and a close look at how pairs close together behave.