On Whangaparāoa's Big Manly Beach, little shore birds are fighting to survive.
The tūturiwhatu, or New Zealand dotterel, was once widespread throughout Aotearoa. Now, their home is mainly limited to the top of the North Island, and there are just 2500 of the endangered birds left, meaning they're more at risk than some species of kiwi.
Dotterels are under constant threat from dogs, hedgehogs, and the elements. But a group of volunteers, known as the Big Manly Dotterel Minders - or Dotterel Defenders - have banded together to protect the birds on their beach.
Founding member Derek Kelsey told Checkpoint the biggest problem is dogs.
"They can sense a dog at 70 or 80 metres away and that frightens them immediately; they go off the nest."
The Dotterel Minders are a group of Manly residents who educated beachgoers on how to keep the birds safe.
"We knew a lot of people who came and talked to us about it, so we set up a meeting at the local library. About 16 people came to that meeting and all put their names down to help out, and we took it from there."
The group had established boundaries around two nesting sites - one at the eastern end of the beach, and one in a resident's backyard.
They had a roster with patrols every hour, from 7am to 8pm.
Patrollers politely asked people to keep their dogs away from the nests, and reported any issues to DOC.
In recent bouts of severe weather, the team set up a sandbag barrier to protect the eggs from big waves - but even then, they had a narrow escape. Kelsey said a big storm washed away all the sandbags, leaving the eggs underwater.
Luckily, another Dotterel Minder was onsite to pick the eggs out of the water, wrap them in a face flannel and put them in his pocket to keep them warm.
Kelsey then arrived with a box lined with cotton wool and transferred the eggs into it, saving them.
When they are not on the beach, dotterels often built their nests in the short grass of golf courses, motorway verges, or by airport runways.
From the deck of her house, Di Waring had an unobstructed view of a pair behind the Manly fire station.
"The first thing I saw was in late August or early September when this pair started mating... and they weren't very discrete."
To protect the dotterels' first attempt at a nest, the fire service refrained from mowing its lawn. But despite all efforts to defend it, the nest came under attack by a deceptively cute member of the animal kingdom.
"I went down and there was no nest, no eggs, nothing," Waring said.
"Jenny [Hanwell] and Derek came down and we found the remnants of the shells, and it had been predated by hedgehogs.
"That was so upsetting."
'Extra effort to care for them'
The same pair of birds was having better luck on the beach, and the dotterel minders' dedication had paid off with the arrival of two chicks.
Forest and Bird's Jenny Hanwell said it was a real win for the species.
"It means that birds like this are no longer just in sanctuaries like Shakespeare; they're starting to spread out here as well.
"But it means that we need to make that extra effort to care for them."
Hanwell said people needed to be aware of the effect they could have just by walking their dog along the beach.
"If a dotterel sees a dog on the beach, it will run for it. It will pretend to have a broken wing [to lure the dog away from the chicks].
"And if we lose an adult, that's actually even worse than losing a chick, because the adults continue to breed, and they can live for over 32 years."
The arrival of summer meant dogs were no longer allowed on Big Manly Beach between 10am and 5pm. But Hanwell said overall, the community respected their need for space anyway.
So why such a show of support for these birds in particular?
"They've just got this cute little way about them," Hanwell said.
"The way they run about the beach, they look like they're running on clockwork, especially the little chicks.
"And they're just right here, essentially in people's backyards, and I think that holds an appeal, that they're caring for something special."
