Hello!

It has been a few months since we shared our last news so we have a few more locations of interest based on the latest encounter reports, we have an update on the fabulous animatronic South Island kōkako from the brilliant team of final year students at the University of Canterbury, we have a winner from our t-shirt draw for new registrations for this newsletter and we share a round up of other news.

Thank you for all your interest and support, we really appreciate you!

Inger Perkins

Manager, South Island Kōkako Charitable Trust

We have received 23 reports of possible encounters since June, and our experts have rated three 'Encouraging' and a further eight as 'Possible'.

Starting with Omoeroa near Franz Josef in June and "melodic bong-like wonderful musical calls", then at Eel Creek Hut by Lake Monowai in Southland in September with "two birds, little bigger than tui" and "a single bell sound I've never heard before", and finally from Lake Sumner Forest Park above Boyle Flat Hut in North Canterbury in October - "It was a smooth grey colour ... with black rings around its eyes".

If you'll be in those areas soon, please keep ears and eyes peeled and camera at the ready to confirm or add detail to these reports. 

Find out more here 

Check our map of encounters here.

Photo: Eel Creek Hut, Lake Monowai.  Photo: Tramped.robin.nz

We have been privileged to work with a team of five brilliant final year engineering students at the University of Canterbury as they took on a project to create an animatronic model of the South Island kōkako.  

The project was picked up by and included in the current issue of NZ Geographic here, calling it a 'remarkable new search tool' and we hope to be trialling and then deploying the model in the coming months. 

Find out more about the winning project, have a look at their winning final year poster plus we have the final report and a video of the presentation if you're interested in the details. 

Find the whole story here

You might have seen our campaign to encourage more people to sign up for these occasional newsletters, with a new 'the search continues ...' t-shirt on offer.  

And the winner is, Will Eason of Christchurch - congratulations Will! Your chosen green t-shirt will be winging its way to you in the new year.

Thank you to everyone who registered for news - we hope you enjoy the newsletters!

All the news on this is here

PS - Our fabulous new t-shirts will be available to order soon and we'll let you know as soon as the webpage and widgets are all working. Unfortunately it won't be in time for delivery for Christmas but these shirts will make a great present any time!

October was Lost Species Month

We shared some information about Lost Species on our Facebook and Instagram pages, but in case you missed it, here are some essential links from Re:wild, which included two of our photos and of course, the South Island kōkako!

Re:wild Lost Species Month Summary

Re:wild Search for Lost Species fabulous 3 minute video

Re:wild Most Wanted Lost Species 

Breakthrough discovery of night parrots

The night parrot believed to be living in arid inland Australia and missing for over 100 years was found in Western Australia by indigenous rangers.  

Fabulous news - such stories always give us hope. 

Read the story on The Conversation here

The 'k-anomaly' that keeps us looking

Amongst the lovely sounds of a South Island native forest, often including tui, bellbirds and warblers for example, sometimes there may be a sound that is different.  Different to the usual familiar sounds.  Sometimes that sound might sound like a kōkako.  In search areas, if we hear such a sound but without seeing the source bird, we call it a k-anomaly.  

We shared a recording with a soft bird call behind the usual bird song on our facebook page recently.   

Have a look and a listen and find out what others thought here

Instagram page 

For those of you who prefer Instagram over Facebook for your socials, our Trustee Rowan Nicholson is posting on our page.  Rowan is a fabulous photographer and instagrammer - you might like to hop over to his page too for some incredible images - and, he hopes, one day, one of the South Island kōkako!

Our Instagram page is here

Rowan's Instagram page is here

We invite you to add a splash of orange-wattled joy to your life!

There are few ways you could make a donation to help us maintain this important search effort, via a credit card donation here, or find out about a bank payment donation here. 

How about making a donation in lieu of a gift for someone - perhaps the person who has everything and doesn't need more stuff!  Find out more here. 

Alternatively you could become a Friend of the Trust with an annual donation.  

However you can help, small or larger, once or regularly, donations are critical for us to continue to work hard, collaborating with others, following up encounter reports and supporting folk to keep looking, so that we can find the South Island kōkako - so that it can be conserved appropriately. 

Thank you very much! 

Need more information? 

There's plenty on our website including all you need to know if you're heading out on a search and the latest news in our Search Blog and encounter reports on our map. 

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