2023 Birds NZ conference Draft Abstracts submitted - SteveCossy/IOT GitHub Wiki

Draft Abstracts submitted to 2023 Birds NZ conference can be found here or below.

The Taranaki Kororā projects are covered in four sessions with these authors: Barbara Hammonds delivers Introduction to Kororā monitoring in Taranaki.  Insights into Kororā Behaviour in an Urban Setting are outlined by Elise Smith.  Steve Cosgrove and Andrew Hornblow introduce the ICT components of the projects: Tracking Kororā: Effective and Affordable Electronic Data Collection. Steve and Andrew, with ‘user view’ from Elise and Barbara, will provide a Workshop and Tech Talk for those wanting hands-on experience with the technology.

Introduction to Kororā monitoring in Taranaki Barbara Hammonds Ngā Motu Marine Reserve Society Secretary and Active Citizen Ngāmotu New Plymouth [email protected] Kororā used to nest beneath the holiday baches at Oakura beach and the more permanently occupied baches at Ngāmotu Beach. As the Oakura area transformed into a place where people lived not just holidayed, penguin nesting areas became increasingly restricted until there were no underfloor spaces left, and they were also displaced from Ngāmotu Beach with the removal of the baches in 1997. What happened to them? In fact where were kororā living around the Taranaki coast and how were they doing? Answering these questions, along with providing accommodation for kororā (partly to enable monitoring), became one of the goals of the Ngā Motu Marine Reserve Society, along with increasing the awareness of the general public that we live alongside kororā and that they need our help, e.g. by keeping dogs under control. Since the early 2000’s, the Society has worked with local businesses, teachers, technical experts, and the wider public to gain a better understanding of penguin whereabouts and behaviour through various projects, some of which used remote sensing. These will be briefly covered. Over the last few years monitoring kororā in Taranaki has reached a new level of sophistication, with the help of scientists from the NZ Penguin Initiative and various funders. In partnership with local hapū Ngāti Te Whiti a group of volunteers regularly monitors penguins which use the nest boxes in the Te Kahui colony in the Port Taranaki area, and another nesting area in a rock wall close by. A similar project run by Ngā Mutunga in North Taranaki is studying kororā at Wai-iti and Urenui beaches. The combination of RFID tags, Axy Trek GPS units, cameras, RFID readers, temperature loggers, a phone app and volunteer time have allowed us to find out where kororā go to feed, nesting success, fledging success, a great deal of kororā behaviour, and the start of being able to assess the size of the population and how stable or otherwise it is. Some of these results will be presented. The intention is for this to be a multi-year study, and this season will be Year 3. We have microchipped penguins, monitored breeding success and tracked penguins in just two seasons so far. One of the findings is how little we know!

30 March 2023Abstracts, Taranaki kororā – Birds NZ conference 20231

Insights into Kororā Behaviour in an Urban Setting Elise Smith Ngā Motu Marine Reserve Society, 320B Frankley Road, New Plymouth, New Zealand ([email protected])

The development of electronic monitoring tools in the Port Taranaki colony of Eudyptula minor / kororā / little blue penguins has provided quantifiable information about nest-box conditions and bird activity. We have developed a combination of tools to allow minimum disturbance whilst monitoring nests and for GPS tracker retrieval. Using security cameras with live-feed and replay, field cameras and Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) readers at artificial nest box entrances we can rapidly respond to tracked birds arriving back at the nest. The use of phone apps to watch the cameras and see the RFID number of a bird arriving or departing allows a team to stay out of the colony and arrive when required to capture a bird. The urban kororā are wary and will not enter the colony when humans are present. The technology results in less bird stress and greater likelihood of retrieving the GPS device. As a community group we have relied upon the help of Andrew Hornblow who has developed low-cost yet sophisticated Internet of Things devices and platforms to collect data. There has been a great deal of innovation and improvisation over the last decade to reach a point where surveillance tools can be deployed as stand-alone units on individual nests, solar powered and transferable. A case history of a particularly interesting pair of birds is presented demonstrating the technology and what we have learned about kororā behaviour.

Tracking Kororā: Effective and Affordable Electronic Data Collection

Steve Cosgrove1, Andrew Hornblow2 1 Senior Lecturer Whitireia New Zealand [email protected] 2 Educational Consultant – Internet of Things 80 King Street, Opunake [email protected]  

New Zealand was the Land of Birds.  That changed with human arrival, particularly people and the mammals they brought with them from Europe.  About 100 years ago ornithological researchers realised the country's bird population had declined to a perilous state.  Since then, various innovative techniques have been used to assess the state of native species, protect and support remaining populations, and assist with breeding.  Generally, equipment used has seen less innovation.  There is merit in using monitoring and measuring technology that is proven and reliable.  In general this strategy has worked at producing valid scientific data. The project to learn more about Kororā, Little Blue Penguins, started with a different kaupapa to many ornithological studies.  Rather than a primary focus on a research question, the aims of this project gave equal weight to a requirement to involve the community in a project that would also introduce information technology elements in an innovative way. This case study outlines the original information and communication technology (ICT) used in the project.  The transition is described as each ICT component is migrated to newer technologies that become available to the project team.  The current components include low-cost temperature sensors to monitor borrows and RFID readers to identify individual birds,  These devices are supported by a management ecosystem using the PicAxe education-focused microprocessor and the Raspberry Pi computer which was also designed as an educational tool.  LoRa radio frequency transmission devices, and the MQTT telemetry data protocol are used to move data on the Internet.  The data can then be viewed in real time using a free plan from the Cayenne IoT dashboard.  GitHub is used to store data long-term while making it accessible.  IBM’s Node-Red platform is used to 30 March 2023Abstracts, Taranaki kororā – Birds NZ conference 20232 generate reports and display required long-term graphs. For almost a decade now simple tools have enabled remote monitoring at low capital and no on-going costs.  Thermometry techniques have been used and proven to be a useful method of continuously remotely monitor nest occupation and kororā activity.  

Workshop and Tech Talk from the Taranaki Kororā projects Andrew Hornblow, Steve Cosgrove, Elise Smith, Barbara Hammonds

Affiliations are listed under individual abstracts.

Researchers like consistency and certainty.  Methods used to study birds have been refined over many years and there needs to be a good reason to change.  This workshop will showcase some of the technologies used by the Taranaki Kororā projects, with demonstrations of the operation of the equipment and examples of outputs that can be obtained. Come along and try pretending to be a kororā.  Watch the results in our real-time display and see how that information has been used for this project.  The emphasis will be on a researcher heavy, technical-light treatment, but if you want to know more of the technical details, you can find that too. There are also elements of interest to those looking for a school project.  Parts of this workshop and numerous other projects which Andrew has been leading came with a strong educational focus.