Rare grebes get help with nesting

There will be no empty nest syndrome in Te Anau if the Department of Conservation and a group of children have anything to do with it.

Children and families came together in Te Anau at the weekend to build nests for the endangered Australasian crested grebe bird near the Te Anau Bird Sanctuary.

Community ranger Michelle Crouchley said DOC had been working with Kids Restore the Kepler and the Department of Corrections to make sturdy nesting frames for the birds, which nest on top of the water.

Changing water levels on Lake Te Anau meant the grebe nests could be destroyed and any eggs laid in them could be washed away, she said.

Prisoners at the Otago Correctional Facility in Milton built the wooden frames for the rafts, which the nests were then built in, and then the Te Anau-based children from the Kids Restore the Kepler programme helped construct six nests for the grebes.

A plastics company in Dunedin donated the plastic containers, which were attached to the bottom of the frames to provide buoyancy.

‘‘It’s really cool that it’s lots of people working together to make it happen,’’ Crouchley said.

A boom had been put on the lake so waves wouldn’t topple the nests in choppy conditions.

The birds, which were once plentiful across South Island lakes, had become rare and were predated upon by stoats.

The grebes had started courtship and would start nesting in the next few weeks.