Pukaha staff delighted to be so blue

CUTE: Whio ducklings at Pukaha Mt Bruce.PHOTOS/LYNDA FERINGA

Pukaha is whistling through a bumper breeding season for the rare native duck, the whio, while also winning record visitor numbers to the national wildlife centre, say staff.

Visitor experience supervisor Laura Saba said crowds had tracked through the gates at the Mt Bruce centre over the past year, out-pacing the best previous annual attendances by about 20 per cent and attracting a greater than usual number of Wairarapa visitors.

Ms Saba said the latest breeding season for the threatened whio, or blue duck, had been another runaway success for Pukaha and the rare native birds will play a central role in a new $800,000 walk-in aviary planned for the centre.

The planned structure will cover an area of about 30m by 20m and will be built next to the centre wetlands and a nectar area will also be constructed for the feeding of bellbirds and tui and other wild birds calling Pukaha home.

Fabric Structure Systems, which created The Cloud on Queen's Wharf in Auckland, will design the walk-in aviary similar to the kea aviary the company built at Auckland Zoo, she said.

"We have had a record number of visitors over the past year and a lot more local visitation - everyone's been showing Pukaha off to their guests. We're rapt with that and owe a lot of thanks to our locals because it's all about community ownership and spirit, which is what will help build the new walk-in aviary."

Centre rangers and staff had successfully reared 16 chicks in three clutches over the latest breeding season, she said, and "it is awesome" to add the young birds to the threatened population of less than 2500 of the wetland birds.

The whio, which feature on the New Zealand $10 note, live in fast-running rivers, have large, webbed feet for power in fast rivers, and well-developed claws for rough terrain.

The ducks eat insect larvae - caddisfly, mayfly and stonefly - scraped from submerged rocks and its bony bill is protected from abrasion by a fleshy flap, which also gives the males the ability to whistle rather than quack during mating and to protect territory.

Captive breeding ranger Ali Hull said each clutch had been hatched and raised apart from their parents at the centre, which was a nursery and pre-school for the chicks for two months before the young animals were sent to a fast water training facility in Turangi ahead of their release to the wild.

The birds imprint easily and rangers remained quiet and retire from the younger chicks while also keeping them in brooder tubs by night and getting them used to the outdoors by day, she said.

A clutch of six chicks had been already sent from Pukaha to the 'hardening unit' while another six birds will be sent there next week. The youngest clutch of 10-day-old chicks will be dispatched to Turangi in several weeks, Ms Hull said.

The breeding pair, including a "real stud" of a male, had been producing chicks at the centre for the past two seasons. The hen was today sitting on a dummy clutch of eggs to help her to restore and relax and the male was roaming its domain in the temporary whio aviary.