There was high drama on Mount Maunganui's main beach during the early hours this morning.
Harry and Sophie, two oystercatchers that have been nesting on the main beach for the past week, faced a dilemma when high tide came within a metre of their nest at about 3.50am.
Their eggs were laid in their nest on December 20, and they nestle together in what is just a scrape in the sand with the birds taking turns sitting on them.
A section of the beach around the nest has been roped off by the Department of Conservation to protect the nesting grounds.
Speaking to SunLive earlier this week, Western Bay Wildlife Trust's Julia Graham implores people to respect the area around Harry and Sophie's nest and to keep their distance.
'Everyone needs to remember why it is so important to have and respect the few dog free zones that exist in the area.
'Also please respect and keep your distance from the nesting birds.”
It'll be nature versus nature today as an even higher high tide is due at 4pm this afternoon - will the nest survive?
4 comments
New Years
Posted on 24-12-2016 11:56 | By mikeperro1
How will these ever survive the New Year party with drunk 14 year olds running into the ocean???
wow
Posted on 24-12-2016 12:51 | By fletch
How will these birds survive without some human intervention. They managed to kill an orca with manhandling it so often
DOC is the Department of Conversation
Posted on 26-12-2016 08:23 | By CC8
They will have 14 meetings and 4 consultations , another bunch of meetings to consider the consultant's propositions,a further secret meeting to decide which consultant's view is possibly correct and then put out three press releases, only to discover that the eggs are no longer there. The process will go around again looking where they can attribute blame for the missing oystercatcher eggs. A further meeting to discuss how these two missing eggs change the ratios and survival rates and the possibility that Oystercatchers may become extinct in the year 2525...if man is still alive. They completely forget that there are no longer any oysters for the Oystercatchers to catch, because they have been decimated by the immigrants who remove buckets and buckets of shellfish at 4 am from around the Mount ... it will soon be like Cockle(less) Bay in Auckland.
@CCB
Posted on 26-12-2016 10:42 | By morepork
A perfect, succinct summation, which, while it made me smile, is too close to the truth for comfort...
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