Talon-ted newbie joins air defenders

NEW ARRIVAL: Andrew Thomas, Rotorua Wingspan Bird of Prey Centre trainer, with a male native bush falcon called Quentin. Quentin will be transported to Martinborough later this month to join two other falcons who catch prey around the vineyards.

Martinborough's vineyards will get a third native bush falcon to keep the scare tactics going with grape-loving pests.

Project organiser Jane Lenting, from Palliser Estate vineyard, said the new falcon, called Quentin, would arrive later this month from Rotorua's Wingspan Birds of Prey to join the 5-month-old falcons Honour and Pari, which arrived in November.

Quentin will replace Hohoro, which was killed by a stoat.

The project uses raptors born in capitivity in Rotorua, then transported to Wairarapa as young birds yet to imprint on their territory.

It is part of a conservation project between the Rotorua sanctuary, Department of Conservation and Escarpment Vineyard, to bring the birds back to the district, with the bonus of providing effective pest control for vineyards.

Ms Lenting said Quentin was one of three birds rescued from eggs from Kaingaroa Forest.

As the sanctuary had taught Quentin to hunt, he would arrive able to feed himself.

Ms Lenting said Honour and Pari were doing well in their environment and doing what was hoped.

She had removed their locator transmitters.

However, people had contacted her with sightings of Honour and Pari, who seemed to have taken a special liking to Palliser's Clouston vineyard at the end of Weld St.

"I am still giving them supplementary food every second day at Escarpment vineyard and they're taking about a third of what they need."

She was now reducing the quantity based on uneaten food.

"They are increasingly wild.

"The female - Honour - used to tolerate me approaching to about three or four metres, but now she flies off as soon as I arrive, unless I am well away from her feed table."

She said providing Quentin to their project was a "vote of confidence" for their work and a privilege.

Normally Wingspan would release birds like Quentin at Kaingaroa School east of Taupo, where the children provided supplementary food until the falcon become fully wild and headed off into the forest to live.

She said as Quentin wasn't hack released, he would not imprint on the Martinborough landscape and might not stay around.

"But we hope that the abundant food in Martinborough will tempt him to stay."