Kereru will benefit from container aviary
A WOMAN dedicated to helping an ‘‘accidentprone’’ native bird fly again is thrilled to get a new $15,000 aviary, made from a 12m shipping container.
Project Kereru director Nic Hurring, a former vet nurse, has been working with kereru since the 1990s and takes referrals from the Dunedin Wildlife Hospital.
Ms Hurring said she had two aviaries already, also made from containers, and the third one was officially handed over to her by CSL Containers Ltd yesterday.
Funding for the new aviary came from Forest and Bird, which paid for the aviary with money from the Dr Marjorie Barclay Trust.
Ms Hurring, who operates with a permit from the Department of Conservation, is looking after about 10 birds.
The birds could stay for between several days and several months.
Kereru were ‘‘accidentprone’’ and the majority of the 40 to 80 wood pigeons which came to her every year had flown into windows, been hit by cars or fallen from the nest on ‘‘unscheduled test flights’’.
‘‘Sometimes they can damage their flight feathers, they need to wait for their wing feathers to grow back again,’’ she said.
She also had a handreared bird that was staying with her and ‘‘learning to be wild’’ so it could cope with life in the forest.
It was important to have a long building for the native wood pigeons, because they needed space to learn to fly again, Ms Hurring said.
CSL manager Chris Helm said the roof of new aviary was made of wire but there was a drooping green net to make it less likely the birds would fly into it.
There were holders in the aviary for the branches, and more branches would be placed on the floor.
Ms Hurring said rather than extra wood pigeons going into the cage, it would give the kereru already being rehabilitated the space to spread out.
A smaller, 6m aviary was used for birds that were convalescing and could not fly.
She did not house the birds permanently, she said.
The new container took about two weeks to be transformed into an aviary. The sides and top of the container were cut open and then covered with wire and netting.
Doug Allen Fencing also helped create the aviary, and Ms Hurring said Action Engineering had created metal supports for it.
CSL Containers employee Ron Tapp, who carried out much of the work on the building, said it was good to have a ‘‘worthwhile’’ project to work on, but due to some of the intricate details it had taken a bit longer than expected.
Forest and Bird liaison Francie Beggs, who arrived at CSL to see the end product yesterday, said it was ‘‘really great’’.
Mr Helm said the idea was to make the aviary totally rodentproof.The structure was painted ‘‘karaka green’’ so it would blend into the bush, and the double doors at the end would make the aviary easy to clean.