Whangamatā beach · spring–summer

Watching over the
tūturiwhatu.

Every spring, a handful of Northern New Zealand dotterel pairs try to raise a family on the open sand at Whangamatā – in the open, at ground level, right where people walk. This is the volunteer group keeping an eye on them until their chicks can fly.

A Northern New Zealand dotterel resting on the sand at Whangamatā
~2,600
Northern tūturiwhatu left, nationwide
Aug–Feb
The breeding season, most years
Threatened
Nationally increasing
About The Birds

A ground-nester in a world built for feet.

Tūturiwhatu is the Māori name for the Northern New Zealand dotterel, a heavily-built plover found nowhere else in the world. It nests in the open – a shallow scrape in the sand, no more protected than the beach around it.

Why nest in the open at all?

That's not carelessness: New Zealand had no land mammals for most of these birds' evolutionary history, so nesting in the open cost nothing for millions of years. It's only since people arrived – and the rats, stoats and hedgehogs that came with them – that an exposed scrape on a busy beach became a real gamble.

There's no advantage to building anything more elaborate, either: chicks can run, hide and feed themselves within hours of hatching, so there's no helpless nestling stage to shelter – and a raised or built-up nest would only make the eggs easier to spot against flat, open sand.

A tūturiwhatu chick walking across the sand at Whangamatā
Up to 3 eggs
Laid in a bare scrape in the sand – drops to 2, then 1, if a pair re-nests after losing a clutch
30–32 days
Until chicks hatch, females incubate by day, males overnight, while the other feeds
Ground-mobile
Chicks run, hide and feed themselves from day one – they just can't fly for a while
5-6 weeks to fledging
Before chicks are strong enough to fly, dependent on food availability – they're most vulnerable in the first 3 weeks
Predators
Hedgehogs, stoats, cats, rats, hawks and gulls take eggs and chicks
Keep dogs on leash
Dogs are one of the biggest risks to a nest – even a friendly one can flush parents or crush eggs
Spotting Dotterels

What to look for

A stocky, round-eyed shorebird with a heavy black bill and grey legs. From around May, the underparts deepen from off-white to a warm orange-red band across the breast – brighter and darker on the males. Outside the breeding season the colour fades and the birds are far harder to pick out on the sand.

Look out for limping birds – it's not what you think

It isn't hurt. A parent whose nest or chicks are close by will fake a broken wing and stagger away from them, trying to drag your attention with it. It means you're too close – back out the way you came, slowly, without following the bird.

A tūturiwhatu faking a broken wing to draw attention from its nest – reference photo, to be swapped for a licensed image before publishing
Image © Alan Tennyson
Nesting & fencing

Where they nest, and why some areas are roped off.

Tūturiwhatu don't spread evenly along the beach – they choose specific stretches of dry, open sand above the high-tide line. Pairs tend to return to nearly the same stretch each season, so we already have a good idea where to expect them, roped areas are sited and sized accordingly, often covering a few nests at once rather than just one scrape.

Share the shore
A roped area gives the nest safe berth, but it's still modest against the whole beach – and it comes down again once the season is over. The rest of the sand stays exactly as open as it's always been.
Fencing follows the birds
Areas are sited where pairs are expected to nest, based on past seasons, and confirmed once eggs are found – most of the beach stays completely open.
A rope, not a fence around your day
The eggs and chicks are close to invisible against the sand, so the rope is just there to help everyone – beachgoers, dogs and all – give the nest a wide berth without meaning to.
Minimal by design
We fence the smallest area that works, because sharing the beach matters just as much as protecting the nest.
Map of Whangamatā, showing the harbour, the town and the surrounding coastline
If you see a new fenced-off patch of sand, that's a nest in progress – no need to do anything, just give it a wide berth.
2026–2027 Season

The season's figures, once they exist.

At the end of each season, there's one figure DOC actually needs: how many chicks fledged.

We'll keep track of the others too – how many pairs held territory and how many nests they attempted – because they're interesting in their own right, but fledged chicks is the number that counts. We'll post it all here as the season builds.

0.5 chicks per pair

A productivity rate of 0.5 chicks per pair is the baseline rule-of-thumb needed to guarantee population stability.

Stronger seasons across the Coromandel's 6 main flocking sites (which includes Whangamatā) have historically reached peaks of 0.7 chicks per pair (~140 fledged chicks across the region).

If the chick fledging rate drops consistently below the 0.5 chicks per pair baseline, the local dotterel population will enter a population decline.

No update yet this season

Monitoring hasn't started for this breeding season. Once volunteers are out checking nests, a running total will appear here.