An Interview with Dave Boyle; The Seabirds of Chatham Island; Part 1

Lying 700km east of New Zealand, in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, lie the Chatham Islands. This far flung location is one of the finest locations in the world for breeding seasbirds. Sadly, many of them are now critically endangered. I could not pass up the opportunity of talking to Dave Boyle, on of the Chatham Island Taiko Trust team. Over the past decade or so, Dave has been working tirelessly with Seabirds on these islands and has made serious efforts to field record many of them. He was king enough to come on to the podcast and share some quite remarkable recordings of a wide range of seabird species. Many of these recording are of very high quality and some of them may contain calls that are previously unrecorded. Over the course of two episodes, Dave takes us into the hidden world of breeding seabirds in the Pacific Ocean, shares his expansice knowledge of these species and talks about the work being carried out with regard to one of the world rarest seabird species, the Chatham Island Taiko.

This long interview was broken down into two episodes, due to the long running time and large number of field recordings. 

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https://www.taiko.org.nz/

Transcript

 You are all very welcome to Wild Bird Acoustics. I'm your host, Alan Dalton, and I'll be taking you on a journey into sound. Now folks, you are all very, very welcome to another episode here at Wild Bird Acoustics. We have an interview for you today. It's going to be quite wonderful. We're traveling all the way to the Pacific Ocean today to a place called the Chatham Islands, and I spoke to Dave Boyle about his work with some incredible seabirds. Dave is working with the Chatham Islands Conservation Project. They're doing some incredibly important work with some of the rarest seaboard species in the world, including the Tyco petrol now before I start the interview, Dave has kindly sent me a very large amount of audio files of a wide range of quite incredible seaboard species. And this interview actually ran into very long territory, time-wise. And what I've decided to do is break it up into two parts as a result. So there will be a part one and part two, and there's a bonus for listeners. We're gonna keep these together and I will release both of these episodes on the same day. Quite unusual, a first for Wild Bird acoustics to release two episodes, midseason. But I just wanted to keep the two parts of this interview together and release them on the same day and not leave listeners hanging for the second part. Now it's an absolutely incredible interview. This Dave has secured some remarkable audio and a lot of these recordings. Dave put in a huge amount of work to get, so I hope they are appreciated. I certainly think they're very, very special and of great scientific value with crack on now with the interview. This is an interview with Dave Boyle. Now welcome everybody to Wild Bird Acoustics. Once again, I'm delighted to tell you we have an interview for you, and I'm even more delighted to welcome Dave Boyle to the podcast. Dave, you're very, very welcome to Wild Bird Acoustics. Geez, Ellen. Nice to see you again. So, it's been a while since we met each other. , First of all, I suppose would just, uh, can you just give us a little bit of background about yourself and how long you've been boarding? . So I, I can't remember a time when I wasn't birding really, to be honest. , always been interested in birds. I think I started actively sort of probably going out birding when I was, I dunno, maybe about eight or nine. Um, just in sort of local park and stuff in London. Um, and then so as I got a bit older, started spreading out a little bit more into the reservoirs sort of bike on the train. And then, yeah, just ended up, ended up working with birds. Ended up, um, I trained as a cabinet maker when I left school and then I went down to dungeon ness one day and they didn't have an assistant warden and did, oh, I'd be keen to give that a go if you, if you're keen and yeah, sort of went and did that for a year and well, I dunno, we're looking at nearly 35 years later, still working with birds, never in back cabinet making. Is, don't you ask where you first got into ringing as well? Uh, yes. I, I've done a little bit in London beforehand when I, when I was like a, like early teens, but kind of, sort of drifted out of it and then got back into it again. And I think you were involved as well at Spa quite a bit. Were you? Yeah, so my, my dad's from, my dad's from Hull. Um, so I've been going to spur as long as I can remember as well. Um, and ended up working there. And ended up working there twice, sort of the two years working for the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and then went back for three years sort of working for the observatory. And then I think of course after Spur, then you came to Cape Clear Oil and we've a lot of worry listeners, so they'll all be well aware of, of you and your time at Cape Clear Island. You must have some great memories of Cape Clear as well, do you? Yeah, no, I mean, yeah. Uh, Kate Claire was, was amazing. Uh, had, I mean, yeah, probably two of the best years of my life. Really, really enjoyed it. Beautiful place, beautiful people. Um, really fun place. And yeah, so, um, I think I messaged you earlier. I mean, Jimmy Dowell turned up here in, or back in this, back in December, so yeah, no, really nice to see me. That's fantastic. Yeah, I was looking at him. Hmm. I'm sure I know that fella. So what came after that then you left Cape, and how did it come about that you, you got your position on the Chatham Oils, uh, working with Sea Words? So, after I left Cape, I went back to London and sort of went back and stayed with family and, and I, I ended up just driving buses for, for a year, 18 months in London. Um, and yeah, just, just saved up some money. And then after that kind of decided I wanted to have a nice holiday, so I went on sub Antarctic Islands of New Zealand, her, um, heritage Expeditions, crews, and on that cruise, one of the lecturers was a fellow called Brian Bell, who used to be sort of head of wildlife recovery for the New Zealand Wildlife Service before Department of Conservation. And they had some work. So he used to specialize in island Eradications, uh, and getting rid of rats and stuff from islands. Mm-hmm. And they, he'd done, he'd recently done a feasibility study for getting rid of the cats from Ascension Island. Um, but they didn't have any funding for it yet, so I just kind of said, ah, yeah, well, if, if, if you're on hand, just gimme a shout. Never really expecting to hear anything in. And then I know three. Three, four years later just got an email and said, oh, we've got some funding. You're still keen to come. So I ended up going there, spent two years there, and Mike Bell, Bryan's son was running it. Um, so yeah, I lived with Mike for a couple of years and then Mike was heavily involved with the Chatham Island Tyco Trust. So when the Island Tyco Trust got the contract from Department of Conservation to do the management work, uh, for the Channel Island, Tyco might, might just emailed me and said, oh. Thanks for coming and doing this, and yeah, that's, well that's 13, 14 years ago now. And yeah. Thought again, thought, ah, I'll just do that for a year or two and now mm-hmm. 14 years later or whatever, I'm still here. with regard to, we should probably actually just go to where the Chatham oils are actually located, so I think it's a couple of, maybe 200 kilometers. Is it out from, uh, New Zealand out in the Pacific? No, it's, it's eight 800 kilometers to the east of New Zealand. Um, and the international dateline actually kinks around the island. Mm-hmm. Um, so we're on the same day as New Zealand. We're a slightly different time zone. We are 5 45 minutes ahead of New Zealand. But yeah, so one, one of the big marketing things for the Chathams, it's the first place to see the sun. Um, so there was a huge party here in sort of at the millennium. Um, but yeah, we should probably be one of the last places to see the sun bits only 'cause of the international dateline kinks around the islands. And with regard to the chathams, Dave, what are the challenges facing seabirds on the islands? Um, so I mean, it's, I mean, it's all, all, I mean, the usual one, I mean, it's like, um, introduced to predators. Um, say here, there's, there's three species of rat. Um, there's a kire, which has been here, which is little Polynesian rat. Uh, they would've been brought here by the. The Morrie, who are the indigenous people of Chatham Island. So they've been here seven, 800 years. Um, then Europeans sort of came late 18th century. Um, one of the worst things they brought actually was the Wacker, which is, um, a big Flightless rail. Um, and yeah. They're, I mean, I mean they're, they're amazing birds, but they're just so destructive. They just eat anything and they're, they're just so curious. Okay. They just sort of poke around everything. Um, but then, yeah. Land clearance are here. Yeah. A lot of the bush is gone. Um, yeah. Feral cats here. Pigs. Um, up until relatively recently, there was still cattle and sheep all through the bush. There would've been trampoline burrows. Um. I'm trying to say what else would would've been, there's hedgehogs here. Okay. So yeah, so I mean, so the bird we work with the channel Island tiger. They, they breed well in land in the last sort of patch of bush. Um, which probably isn't necessarily the best habitat for them, but it's the worst habitat for everything else. Okay. And, uh, how are efforts going with eradication of pests there? It's probably gonna be almost impossible to get rid of 'em completely. Is it? Yeah, it's gonna be. Any, anything where you've got people, it just becomes so hard. Um, and the, the big thing here is, I mean, it's a working island. It's a, you, you can't treat a treat an island which has got people the same as an uninhabited island. You can't just go round dropping sort of bait outta planes. Um, so the big one here, which I think is, is probably impossible to overcome, is, is livestock. Um. There's big solid cattle and sheep farming on the island. You can't just go around dropping bait in those you and you there, there's nowhere to move them to. Um, so yeah, I think that's probably a, a pretty insurmountable problem. Um, but yeah, there, there's another, there's another group called the Chatham Island Landscape Restoration Trust. They're, uh, they're part of the Predator 3 20 50 movement, which is a sort of New Zealand sort of government initiative. Uh, probably unrealistically, hoping to get rid of all introduced predators in New Zealand by, well, not all, sorry, all rats, um, master lids, and now they've added feral cats to that by 2050. Um, so yeah, so the Chatham Islands, they're, look, they're looking at, um, just getting rid of possums and feral cats at this stage. Okay. Um. I, I mean, yeah. I mean they, they've, I mean they've, they've, they've talked to everybody on the island and just, just, just realized rats is, is it's just too hard. Yeah. Yeah. Have you been spared Ellas there, are there ferrets on the island? Yeah, so luckily there's no wrap, there's no rabbits out here, so there was, there's no need to, to bring MAs. Um, there were cats, uh, there were rabbits briefly on one of the offshore islands. Um. But they put cats on there to get rid of the rabbits. And then I think they actually lost three species of bird when they, when they put cats well apart. Land clearing for farming and then putting cats on there. Uh, just before I go any further, it's just fantastic the work you guys are doing out there. So caps off for that and, uh, keep it up. It's brilliant, brilliant. See this kind of work going on. Um, I do have some questions about the Tyco. I'll hang on to them for a while when we're playing some of the audio. Um, I think we'll get into some audio. How many seabird species breed on these islands? They have roughly there's, there's quite a few. Yeah, I, I mean, it must have been absolutely amazing sort of pre, pre-human contact. Um, I mean, even now, I mean, some of the, some of the offshore islands have, I mean, they, they, they're some of the greatest seabird islands in the world, easily. Um, you've got a little group of islands in the north called the Sisters, which are like covered in northern bullas albatrosses and royal albatrosses. Um, you've got some islands out to the east called the 40 fours. Um. That's got, so something like 20 20,000 pairs of , Northern Bull Albert trusses on it. Mm-hmm. Uh, plus a couple of thousand pairs of royals. Um, then off pits, you've got southeast island. That's, that's, I mean, it's a fairly unassuming looking island. Um, but that's got possibly pushing a million pairs of white face storm petrols on it. Um, plus like hundreds of thousands of pairs of broad bill pry. City Shearwaters. Um, and you've got another island mungy, which has got, I mean, not huge amounts of SeaBus and mre, which has got a massive city shearwater colony. So, yeah, I mean there's this, the ma the main islands would've been the same as well, sort of, yep, 800 years ago. But yeah, pretty much the main island as everything's gone. Okay, now you have sent me some absolutely incredible audio. Um, there, there's a lot of it. We should probably get stuck into it fairly soon. And I think what I'll do is I'm, I might break this, uh, interview with the two parts, if you like, for two episodes. Because I think it's gonna be quite lengthy. Um, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm just really bad at editing audio. No, I mean, the thing about it is some of these are a little bit long. I'm gonna leave them quite long, and the recordings are absolutely incredible and, uh, it's gonna be fantastic for people to hear these. I think the first one you've sent to us is Black Winged Petrol, , 14th of February, 2021. And that's from Orang Summit. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Yep. Yep, yep. Okay. And to me, this sounds quite like a keal to be honest. Um, we played the, a little bit, um, we played the audio and then we'll just have a chat about it. This is Black Winged Petrol on Ranu Summit. 。です。 です。 タル ち。 So that's, that's Blackwing petrol. Um, how many pairs are you talking? Uh, not very many. They're actually, they're more of a sort of subtropical species, which is sort of spread south. Um, so yeah, they're on most of the small islands, but only, only in fairly small numbers. I, I don't know how many are on Ranier. Um, but yeah, they're right on the summit of the island. Um. I, I dunno, maybe, maybe only about 50 pairs or something. Okay. And Ran is just off the Chathams as well, is it? I'm not, not sure. So yeah, so, so Ranu is the Maori name for Southeast Island. So it is most sort of international people, uh, birders and stuff. We know as Southeast Islands, which is off Pit Island. Yeah. And that, that, that, that recording just kind of gives you an idea of the atmosphere. There are a lot of, so shear orders and things in the background. Just lot of So shear orders. Yep. Yeah, incredibly. We have, we also have some recordings of those for later. But, um, yeah, an amazing recording and, um, we'll move on to the next one, which is Broad Build Prying. Um, this is in 2021 in February, and again, it's Ranier just below the summit. Um, and we'll play that now. This is a, a long recording. Um. We'll just have a go. This is broad build PreOn. ああ。 ああ。 。あ。 ああ。 は。 ああ。 but uh, are they're quite common. Are they your widespread. Yeah. Um, they are, yeah. I mean, they're, they would've been all over the islands, but yeah, they, they, they only really survive on the offshore islands. Now, um, the only, the only sort of off sort of estimates for most seabirds from Raneer from the early nineties. Okay. And the islands recovered a lot since then. It was, it was farmed. The last sheep weren't removed through the island until I think it was like maybe even the early seventies. Um, so, so the bush is just recovering. So populations are probably still increasing on there, but I think there's something like 300,000 pairs really of royal bill primes on the island. They're actually quite interesting 'cause they're, there're a bit of a, they're a bit of a conservation problem. They're like an autumn breeder, but they start returning to the island in February. when the summer breed in seabirds, especially the Solar Farm, the endemic Chatham Petrol. Um, so endemic Chatham Petrol almost went extincts. They, well, they, they, it was thought to be extinct, but then it was found to still be on ranier in, in pretty small numbers. Um, all, all, all all petrols have like a guard phase with the check where the adult stays with the check for a few days before going off to sea. And the end of the guard phase for Chatham petrol is, I mean the checks are only like two or three days old is just when the bra bill prizes are coming back prospecting. And they used to reckon that they lost pretty much every single Chad and petrol check with brought Bill Bryans coming down. And then they, they'd be sort of investigating, looking for boroughs, finding a, a nice borough. It's got a little tiny check in it and then just killing the checks and taking over the boroughs. Okay. Quite aggressive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And, uh, I mean, how do you get around that? Um, for, for a long time they used to color 'em. Um, sort of any, any sort of birds around Chad and petrol boroughs would, would just banged on the head. Um, and then. A lady she died a few years ago called Kerry Jane Wilson's quite a famous seabird biologist. She ca she and someone, she, I dunno, I, I dunno the name of the person she was with, came up with this idea of putting flaps on the borough entrances. So they sort of, um, jubilee clip an neoprene bit over. So they have to put a, a tube into the island like a tube of drainage coil. Yep. And then put a neoprene flap over it, which has then just got a slit in it. And so it, it's not obviously a burrow. Um, but the Chatham Petrols, it's their borough. They know there's a chicken there. Chatham Petrol's forced to way weigh in, but Broadville Prine don't sort of notice. It's a borough. And yeah, I mean, that, that's, that's, that's Rev revolutionized it to be honest. Yeah. It, it's ingenious. Actually. I was on YouTube looking at somebody's, um, kind of, I, I suppose these, these nest boxes, if you like, with the, with the flaps and stuff. It's absolutely ingenious what you guys are doing out there. Yeah. Yeah, it's quite, yeah, just a such a simple little idea and, and really, really effective. Yeah. So I hope that just continues to be a great success. Um, we're gonna move on. Kate Petrol, I think also known as Pintado. Um, you have a recording here from the 14th of August, 2023, and it's from the 40 fours. Is that offshore? Yep. So that's, um, they're about 30 kilometers, so out to the east here. Okay. This is actually, so, yeah, the, the most Eastern part of New Zealand. Yeah. This is one of my favorite recordings of, of the whole lot actually. It's, it's absolutely remarkable. We play it for you now. This is Cape Petrol. Again, fantastic recording, Dave. Um, wait a minute. I, I, I have to confess, I didn't actually take that recording. Okay. Um, it's a mate of mine, Mike, who Oh, I was talking about earlier. He goes out there and does Albatross sort of, uh, workout on the islands. Okay. So I, I gave him, I gave him a couple of my recorders I was quite keen on getting recordings as, uh, there's a, there's another text and a prying out there. Uh, I was quite keen on getting recordings off and so I gave him a recorder and there he, he sort of stuck it in a cave for the prine for a couple of nights, and then was then just stuck it next to a Cape Petrol nest and yeah, he, so, so, yeah, he got that one. So I, I think Cape Petrol's kind of widespread right across the southern oceans, but how many pairs are he talking about over there? Um, there's, there's not a huge number here. Um, and they, I think they're, they're mainly on just like the really Rocky Islands. Um. I, I couldn't tell you how many there are. I, there's, over the, over the whole channel, there's probably no more than a few hundred pairs. Okay. And I know there's a number of subspecies of, of, of Kay petrol as well, I think. Is there? Yeah. So there's, I think the new New Zealand ones have got less white in the wing. Um, yeah, I mean. But a absolutely fantastic recording. Now, the next recording is a very special species, and it is the Chatham Albatross 30th November, 2016, and the site is known as The Pyramid. I've also had a look on YouTube, and this looks like an incredible location. Is it? Oh, it's, it's, oh yeah. I mean, it's just an amazing island. Um. Yeah, I mean it's, it's quite a few years since I've been here, but you, you can see it from Raneer from the distance and Yeah, it's just, I mean, it's just like a really iconic sort of Chatham Island. Island really. Yeah. It's a highly threatened species. I think just over 5,000 pairs maybe, something like that. Is it? Yeah, it's, it is about 5,000 pairs. They're actually stable. ever since sort of, um, censuses began on the island, there's been about 5,000 pairs and there's still 5,000 pairs now. Uh, which kind of in you think if there's 5,000 pairs, there should be every year say, I mean, in worst case scenario, there should be like a thousand chicks return and, um, and yeah. Where are they all going? That, that the, the population should have increased? Mm-hmm. And there's, there's, there's other islands nearby. That they could spread to, uh, and they, they just haven't. So Okay. Something's going, some, some something's going wrong. They, they're, apparently, they're quite highly caught on long lines. Mm-hmm. Um, on the Chatham Rises, so the Chatham Rises is major fishing area. Yeah. Um, is there a lot of long line fishing in the Pacific? Oh, hu, huge amounts. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Huge amounts. Yeah. Yeah. And say that the Chatham, the Chatham Rise is a very, very busy sort of fishing area. Um. And then, and then you've got the whole of the rest of, I mean, who knows what's going on, sort of outside international waters, but yeah, very difficult. We played a recording. This is Chatham Albatross. Amazing recording. That's, that's actually, um, that's a really poor quality recording. Um, um, and it's, there's, there's a cave on the island, um, which has got. I've, I mean, I know if you, you maybe saw photos of, or if you looked it up on YouTube and the albatross, it's com it's like out of the weather. Um, so the albatross is like, they're, they're sort of nest, sort of pedestals up to like a, I know, like a, up to like a meter tall. Um, but yeah, it's, it's kind of weird acoustics in there. And that was with a really cheap recorder. Um, I, I, we spent, or a week on the island a couple years later, and I got heaps and heaps of recordings, uh, with, uh, with an old Olympus Alice 11 and I, I've lost them all. Um, lost. I would've had like hours and hours and hours of, of, of nice recordings of chat about TROs and yeah, a computer died and I've, I've lost them. I'm still hoping I might find them on an SD card somewhere. Um, but yeah, I haven't yet, and I, I still, I'm still looking for 'em. I mean, if nothing else, it's a good excuse to come back out there. Just quickly, what, uh, what recording equipment are you generally using out there? Um, so I'm generally now using a Zoom F three and clips. Yeah. Um, I've just started, I've just got myself on those Zoom H five studios, um, which I really like. So, I mean, it is got inbuilt microphones and it, and, and you can plug in microphones. But yeah, just having the inbuilt microphones just sometimes just makes it a little bit easier. Um, and, and the, the battery life's better. Um, like, uh, the F three i, I only get about two hours it only takes two double As and Yeah, I, you get about two hours out of it. There's the H five studio, you get about eight hours out of it. Yeah, I, I can imagine it's a bit fiddly as well at nighttime in the dark, the, uh, the Frayer buttons are quite small. I tend to just set everything up, um, and then put a add, put a, attach it to a power bank and then just leave it for like 2, 2, 3 days. Yeah. You, you get, um, you get a good like 48, 8 hours out of it. Yeah. And it works well for you, so you just pick a, pick a nice try and pick two nice nights. Now Dave, we're gonna move on to the Tyco petrol, which is. Uh, these species, I suppose it's, it's the most endangered species on the island, and it has quite an interesting history of this bird. It was, uh, assumed extinct and then rediscovered, I think in 1978, and I think it remains one of the world's most endangered seabirds. Um, can, can you give us a brief synopsis of events, if you like, since its rediscovery in 78? So, yeah, like you say, Alan, it was, it was assumed to be extinct. Um, I'm not a hundred percent sure why, to be honest. 'cause, um, there's people on the island, there's a, there's a, there's a farmer who lived, I mean, just, um, probably about a, about a kilometer from where he used to live. Um, he knew the birds. Um, he, I mean, he owned the land round here. Um, and yeah, I mean, he knew the birds into the, into the fifties. Um. Yeah, there was a big one of the sort of Maori used to harvest them. , The last sort of written, written record of, , they call it Bergen sort of trip into the Tuku was in like the early 20th century and they got a thousand chicks off a hill in a weekend. So, I mean, there was, I mean there was obviously used to be huge numbers of birds. Mm-hmm. And so, I mean, we, we know for sure that they were still there in into the fifties. And then, then basically nobody looked, they just, it was somehow declared extinct and then, yeah, no, no one without any real sort of basis for that. Um, and then, yeah, this fellow, David Crockett, uh, he was working in Canterbury Museum as a schoolboy and there were all these boxes of bones, sort of Mark Channel Island t Then he was like, oh, what, what, what are these? And so, yeah, there, there's distinct seabird and he, he's sort of got interested in it. Uh, wrote to this fellow Harry Blythe, who used to own the land down here, and Harry sort of wrote back and said, oh yeah, no, they'll still be around. Um, so yeah, so David got interest in it. Came out here in first trip he did out here was in 1969, sort of coming around looking for him. Sort of went round, sort of met sort of locals and sort of talked to them to them, asked them what they knew. . Fellow Bruce, he, he would've only been probably a two teenager, then he ended up, um, going off helping them. Uh, they went camping for a few days and he went, he went off. He's still involved. He's, he's my landlord. , So yeah, he's, he's still heavily involved, sort of, uh, say like 55 years later, 55, oh more, 56, 57 years later. Um, and yeah, then they sort of got into spotlighting, um, sort of picked a nice spot on the, on the edge of the valley. , And they actually started seeing birds fairly early on. But no one would, no one would believe them. Oh, I mean, well, lots of people did believe them, but kind of like the, the authorities didn't believe them. Um, and yeah, first birth they caught were on the 1st of January, 1978. So that's when the, that proved that the birds still existed. Um, and then, yeah, and then they were all the old sort of Maori folklore and everything is that they, they nested in the tuku in Ku Valley, , which is like the last or large remaining patch of Bush here. . They were sort of walking around trying to find borrowers, never find anything. And it wasn't until the late eighties fellow called Mike Imber, who used to be a seabird scientist for wildlife service. Then, he brought in radio tracking. So Richard had been, I think, had been tried on carpool. , I think he was probably the first person to try using it on seabirds so that you can catch birds on the coast here. , And then yeah, put radio transmitters on them and then try and track down the boroughs and, yeah. So they, they found that first year, I think they, they put something like eight trackers out and they f they found two, two boroughs, so yeah, that, that was 87. So, so 10 years of looking to prove the bur was still here, then another 10 years to actually find the first boroughs. Okay. I think we'll play a recording. Um, the first recording I have is of three sing singing males, I think it is, uh, December, 2015 in a place called Sweetwater, which I think we'll probably end up talking about again. Um, I played a recording. Now this is Tyco. Um, I think these are also known as Magenta Petrol, is that correct? Yeah. So, so Tyco is, is, it should actually be Tico, um, mm-hmm. Is a, it's kind of like a generic name. It sort of applies. Similar to what Puffin used to be. It's like a seabird, like a bur in seabird that you eat. Uh, basically, um, Thai core, probably Thai is coast and Core is like a, it's like a digging stick. Um, so it means something. It either means digger on the coast or digger from the coast but yeah, it's, it's been, it is been applied to a, to a lot, a lot of, a lot of seabirds. Okay. So it's like a colloquial name, local name, yeah. Yeah. So it's, yeah. Okay. We played a recording. This is a male Tyco. So, Dave, do these words sing generally on the ground? No. No. In flight or in flight? I, I can't get recordings like that anymore. Um, okay. So, so Sweet water. Do you want to, do you wanna go into that now quickly? Yeah, why not? We may as well, we'll have to do it at some point. . So, so one of the, one of the fortunate, I guess, things you can do with Petrols is the adults feed up the chicks, um, until they're up to like, more than double the size of the, of the parent. And then they, then they leave them alone about three weeks before they fledge. , There's like a fairly brief period where it's safe to move them. They've had their last sort of natural feed and they haven't started coming out at night. So you can shift them to like an artificial borough and then when they start coming out the borough, so Channel Ma and Tyco start coming out for about two weeks before they fledge. Um, and hopefully that's the time when they imprint. Yeah. On, on. On the borough. So if you shift them, then there's a, there's a good chance that they return to where they've been shifted to rather than to where they were born. Um, so Sweetwater's on the edge of the bush, it's a, it's only, it's like two and a half hectares, six acres, um, with a predator proof fence around it. So it's com it's a completely safe site. , From 2006 to 2011, every known check was transferred into their, um. Yeah. And then, yeah, I know three, four years later, birds started returning. Um, and now, yeah, we've got, there's about half the known world population inside Sweetwater now. Um, wow. But when, when I took that recording, they were only, they'd only just started breeding. They were quite a few sort of, um, single males around, which had, which had settled into burrows for, for a couple of years. Um. So there, it was quite noisy on the ground. Um, so I, I can't get recordings like that anymore. Um, okay. Any single bird just pairs up straight away now, and once they're paired up, they just don't call. Um, okay. They, they, I mean, they, they call, so they have a brief sort of courtship period every year when the birds first return, um, and they're, they're called and then the duet in, but it's all in the borough. I think. I may be, I may, I think I maybe gave you some, yeah. I've also play them shortly. Yeah. But yeah, but get, but getting, but getting sort of, um, multiple males like that sort of calling on the ground. I, I just can't get recordings like that anymore. Okay. It's, it is a good thing though, in the way obviously. 'cause it means the board. It is. Ironically we have another one now. Um, this is, uh, Chatham Boy and Tyco again. Um. And I think this is a paired dueting. So this will be inside the Burette? Yes, correct. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we'll play that now. This is again, Tyco, and this is a paired dueting inside the burrow. That's a, that's a noisy home environment. I'd say luck. Luckily, they, they literally only do that for about three nights a year. Okay. Um, so the, the really gruff, that's, that's the female. Okay. And I actually know what borough that is. 'cause the male there sounds a bit weird. Um, so, so normally the males are like, sort of like, um, like that first recording was males. It's, it's normally that, that's that sort of slightly sweeter sort of moaning sort of call, but yeah, that, that, that, that male does sound a little bit weird. That one. How long do these birds live, Dave? Do we know, or? Um, the oldest birds we know of got into their early forties. Um, so the seventh bird quarter. So the seventh Bird ever caught and the 10th bird ever caught mm-hmm. Were both caught in 1982 and they were still around until a few years ago. There was an old female, she disappeared, or I gonna say five, six years ago. And then there was another, then the male, which was actually the slightly older bird, um, he disappeared like three or four years ago. Okay. So yes. So I mean, they, they were, they were known about for over 40 years. But I mean, there's, there's no way of knowing how old they were when they were first caught. Okay. I mean, they beat, I mean, they, I mean they, they, they would, they probably wouldn't have been, but they could have been 40 years old when they were first caught. Yeah. And, and how old are they before they begin to breed? Um, normally, normally about five. Okay. Um, or plus, I mean, yeah, I mean, we have birds that suddenly turn up when they're like sort of nine, 10 years old. The, the, the trouble is, I mean, the, the area is so vast we're looking for, for 'em that they're so hard to find you. You never know if they, they, they could have been around for a few years before you actually find them. Okay. Uh, yeah, it's, it's, I'm just trying to get my head around, you know, the, kind of the, the reproductive kind of, uh, rate. I mean, I suppose a bird could produce 25 or 30 chicks in a lifetime, a female. It may. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Okay, we'll move on. We have another Tyco recording now. This is from Tuku Nature Reserve, 19th of October, 2025, and I'll play that now. So that's a male board inside Dave? Yeah. Yeah. Sent is maybe a couple of males there. So there'll be, there'll be, say they do these big looping flights over the bush, which I, I guess birds can see from miles away. Um, and then, yeah, it's kind of just circling around over the area where the borrow is. And I think they normally only probably call when there's another bird around. Um, so they, they'll be chasing the other bird, and then they call at it, and I guess if it's another male, then they, they just peel off and yeah, if it's a female, then the female calls back and then they, they just sort of like chase each other around for, for a while. So, yeah, I think a lot of that pairing up actually happens in flight rather than on the ground. And in the situation where you have maybe a few males moving around giving call flight and, and a female comes in, is it quite, are they quite aggressive or, um, we're kind of not really at that stage, to be honest. Not, I mean, there's not a huge number of birds around. Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, you see it with, I mean, gray face petrol is, is like pretty similar. And you, you, you can see you, you can see like big groups of them. I mean Yeah. I mean groups of like sort of half a dozen, 10 birds sort of chasing each other around. Yeah. So it's quite likely that would be the case if there were, yeah. How many pairs are we talking about of Tyco, Dave? Um, we know of 50, I think we about low, low fifties we know of. Um, okay. And we know there's a few more we, we don't know. Yeah. The unknown is how many we don't know about. Yeah. If that makes sense. Incredibly rare. It's such a precarious position to be in, isn't it? Yeah. They're, they're, they're doing good. I mean, sweet Sweetwater, Sweetwater is the game changer. Basically. Having, having the, yeah. Having a safe population in a small area where, where we can find the birds again. Yeah. It's, it's remarkable what you've done there just to build that kind of safe environment and the way you can get those, those big kind of chicks in and then the way they imprint and come back to it. It's remarkable. We have one more Dave of, um, Tyco, and this is, I think this is Birds in Flight again. So this is male and female in flight. This is the last recording of Tyco. 네 So those high kind of chip calls, are they the females or No, that's the male. So that the, the high moaning and piping call, that's the male and the females . The deeper call, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Wishes every success with that, that species isn't the next foreseeable future basically. And we're gonna move on to Chatham Whale and Petrol, or Chatham Petrol, I think as it's known and not as rare as Tyco, I don't think. Um, but still, I think endangered. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And so, so this is the one where Bel Primes with a big issue. , So I'm gonna play the first one straight away. Um, it's from Ran, uh, this is from this, I think it's February, 2026. And there's a lot of closeup stuff here. You can hear like feed patterning and that kind of thing. So obviously it's, it's on the ground, I think. Um, I'll play it now. This is Chatham Petrol. うん。 So the first thing on that about that is obviously you're used to these birds and you have a good ear for it, but it must be quite difficult actually ground identifying these birds and maybe picking out maybe the rare Tyco sometimes with all of this going on. Yeah, I mean, so that's actually Chad and Petrol's in flight. Yeah. Um, so yeah, doing the same sort of thing, sort of displaying o over the bush at night. , They sound pretty similar to Blackwing petrol. Um, and yeah, some called, I think if you just heard. Like snatches of the, of the call would be very hard to tell from other, even from from Chatman and tko. But if you hear 'em for a little bit longer, , they're pretty distinctive really, to be honest. Yeah. So that was male and female. And Floyd, I made a slight mistake there. It, it would've been, yes. Yep. Yeah. That's over quite a, quite a sort of, sort of dense, sort of little breeding area on Rania. , That'll all be sort of young birds sort of coming back, prospecting. And do they breed in Bush as well? Yep. Yep, they do. Yeah, they do a similar habitat. Yep. So I'll move on to the second recording, Dave. Um, again, this is closeup, uh, I think this is possibly in the burrow, um, RANE. Cocao. Swope, is that right? Swap. Cockapoo Stomp. Yep. Yep. Yeah, some of these place names are quite difficult. . We'll play it for you now. This is Chatham Petrol again. So yeah, that, that, that's, uh, that, that, that's a pair in pair. In a borrow. Yeah. That's fantastic. And we have one more of chat and petrol. Uh, this one's from Sweetwater. Um, again, I think it's in the, uh, in the barrow on the ground, and it's the 5th of December, 2025. I'll play that now. So there we go. Another pair in the borough. , Fantastic recordings, Dave. So they're, they're, they're kind of similar to Chatman Psycho, the, like, the breeders, the only, the only camps sounds they ever make. Uh, that sort of like brief sort of. Three or four nights courtship period. How many pairs roughly do we know of them around the island? Um, there's, I think they reckon there's maybe about 300 pairs on Ranier now they're really, really hard to find. They're, they're quite small and here there's so much leaf litter in the forest floor that they, that they cover up the burrows, uh, with bits of fern and stuff. And yeah, you, you just can't see the boroughs at all. They're just completely hidden. So I know of about eight boroughs in Sweetwater, but there, there, there's more than that. . So that's gonna bring us to an end of the first part of the interview that I've, our listeners won't know this, but we're just gonna kind of crack on and we'll, we'll get onto part two now shortly, but for now, that's the end of part one. We'd be back fairly shortly with part two. saw. That was part one of the interview with Dave Boyle all the way from the Chatham Islands. Some absolutely incredible audio shared there of some incredibly rare sea words, and I think it's quite apparent when you talk to Dave how much effort is going into these projects. Now if you wanna support the project folks, you can go online, just Google the Chatham restoration trust.org.nz and you'll come across their website. They have a support button in the top right hand corner of the website, and you can make a small donation if you see fit. I think it would be wonderful to reward the work of this organization. So for now, that's all from wild bird acoustics. And don't forget, folks, tune in for part two of an interview with Dave Boyle, which will be released on the same day. So that brings us to the end of another episode of Wild Bird Acoustics, and I hope you've enjoyed it. As always, you can find us on YouTube by simply searching for wild bird acoustics. We do have a mailing list also, and if you want to be part of that folks, you can drop us an email at Wild Bird acoustics@gmail.com. Now all feedback is greatly received here at the podcast. And if you'd like to write review of the podcast, you can do so at the buzzsprout header page. In addition, if you'd like to make a small financial donation to the podcast, you can do so using the buy me a Coffee button, and you'll find that also on the Buzzsprout header page. We will be back in a couple of weeks with more from wild bird acoustics. Until then, take it easy, folks, and as always, don't be afraid to get out into the field and relax and just listen to the wildlife out there. Maybe even do a little bit of field recording of your own. We'll talk to you soon, folks. Take it easy. That's all from Wild Bird Acoustics.