HEARING MORE, LEARNING MORE: RRE SUPPORTS THE GREAT MATUKU MŪSTЕR 🌿
What can we learn when we listen beyond what our ears can hear?
The Great Matuku-hūrepo Muster is creating an exciting opportunity to better understand where our elusive native bittern are calling across Rodney East, with RRE playing an important supporting role.
RRE has made 18 AR5 acoustic listening devices available to support the monitoring effort, helping volunteers capture and record the distinctive booming calls of male matuku-hūrepo. These devices can pick up sounds that human listeners may miss, providing another valuable layer of information about bittern activity across our landscape.
Listening beyond the volunteer visits
The Muster combines hands-on volunteer monitoring with acoustic technology to build a much richer picture of bittern activity.
While volunteers undertake three days of monitoring each month, the AR5 devices automatically record during morning and evening listening periods. This means monitoring continues beyond the times volunteers can physically be out in the field, creating many more opportunities to detect and record bittern calls.
The recordings can then be reviewed and analysed, helping identify detections that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.
With monitoring taking place across at least 18 sites, stretching from Mahurangi West through to Leigh, this is a significant opportunity to build a more comprehensive picture of matuku-hūrepo activity across Rodney East.
An investment making a difference
This work highlights the value of Rodney Local Board's support and investment in RRE's shared equipment. Having 16 AR5 recorders available has made a much more extensive monitoring effort possible, extending the reach of volunteer mahi and providing valuable information for future conservation work.
It's not about replacing people with technology. It's about giving volunteers better tools, supporting their efforts and helping turn individual observations and recordings into a wider landscape picture.
We are not yet drawing conclusions about bittern numbers or distribution. The recordings and observations still need to be collated and analysed, but the opportunity to gather information across so many locations and listening periods is an important step forward.
More listening to come
Two phases of the Great Matuku Muster have now been completed, with one more still to come. Once the final round is finished, the recordings and observations will be brought together to help build a clearer picture of what has been detected across the monitoring sites.
We're looking forward to sharing the findings and insights once they are available.
A special acknowledgement to all the volunteers who have given their time to listen, monitor and contribute to this work. Their efforts, combined with the technology and support available through RRE, are helping strengthen our understanding of this special wetland bird.
We also acknowledge Rodney Local Board for its investment in the AR5 equipment, and Wendy Love and the Love Bittern Project for leading and supporting this important initiative.
Want to learn more about matuku-hūrepo and the Great Matuku Muster?
Visit the Love Bittern Project to discover more about bittern monitoring, habitat protection and how communities can help protect this critically threatened wetland bird.
