A wrybill defying the odds and surviving

• Published date: 11 November 2021
• Publication title: North Canterbury News

It was the flash of blue that really caught my attention.

Every month I walk a 2km section of our local Ashley-Rakahuri river, counting the birds that I see on the riverbed.

Over the winter, numbers are low, but they increase over spring when the birds start to arrive for their breeding season.

The iconic species which I keep a special watch for is the wrybill – ngutu pare — the only bird in the world with a side-ways bending bill and only breeding in Canterbury’s braided rivers. Between 8 -10 pairs have bred on the river over the last few years.

For me, the first indication that a wrybill is around comes from its call.

This has a slightly higher pitch than the more common banded dotterel, which always arrives before the wrybill.

It was two weeks ago that I heard a call in the riverbed and soon spotted a single bird feeding up the river margin. Closer examination through binoculars revealed it to be a male bird - and then my eyes widened when I saw a flash of blue as it raised a leg out of the shallow water.

I whispered a low ‘you beauty’, as I realised that this bird was our former MBW-BW, the only colour banded wrybill left on the river.

He was only seen once early last season, after which we thought he had gone for good. But this sighting proved that he was still alive and well.

Placing colour bands on birds allows for individual identification, and since 2000 we have banded 25 wrybill. This ceased in 2011 when the person with the right banding permits departed.

BW-BW was banded as a breeding adult in 2010, when we reckon he was aged 2 – which means he is currently at least 13 years old. To our knowledge, no other banded bird has reached this age on the river, and on average we only see banded birds for about 4 years. Why they don’t last longer, we just do not know – because the oldest wrybills recorded have reached well over 20 years.

We have closely followed BW-BW’s progress since he was first banded. This was down at the Railway site, when he was with a banded female, WO-GO. We know they were together for at least 3 years, and even though they annually...