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Our Resident Kereru

Our Resident KereruNext to our backpackers a female Keruru (native wood pigeon) has chosen to nest for the last 2 summers to lay her eggs and fledge her chick perched in a Totara tree only 1.5 m from the verandah rail!

Kereru ChickAt 650 g with a wingspan of 51 cm the Kereru is a big bird and regarded as on of the worlds most beautiful pigeons. It is a very important bird in the New Zealand forest as they are known to eat fruits from at least 70 species of plants and have a feeding range of 25 km. As they can swallow seed over 20 mm in size and they are the only birds that can manage seeds this size they are an integral part of the redistribution of seed and trees with large seeds rely on Kereru’s distribution of these for their survival.

Kereru lay just one egg and the egg and chick are both very vulnerable to predators like rats, stoats, cats and possums. As we trap all these predators we have a strong resident population of Kereru around our backpackers and we look forward to another chick being raised here this summer.