Ika the NZ Dotterel

Two dotterel eggs were found on the Te Puru sports field in Beachlands just prior to a soccer game.

The eggs were in different areas of the field and the Rangers felt they had been abandoned due the activity around the nesting site.

The eggs were brought to the Whitford Centre and we were able to source and borrow an incubator from a neighbour . We were unsure if incubation of the eggs had been started but we decided to incubate them because if there was an embryo it would die without the correct conditions.

The eggs were up lifted by DoC and taken to the Auckland Zoo a couple of days later. We were fortunate enough to have the Zoo contact us a few weeks later; they told us that although one chick had died during incubation the second had hatched earlier than expected. Our decision to incubate had been the right one!

We were invited to see the little Dotterel a few days after her hatching and she was just beautiful, a little fluff ball on stilts! We visited the zoo recently and managed to take some photographs of Ika and her friends in their newly built home in the fantastic new Te Wao Nui facility.