Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora

Bitterns are a kind of heron, and there are fewer than 1,000 left in the whole country, with fewer than 50 in Canterbury.

Most of Canterbury's birds nest around Te Waihora, also called Lake Ellesmere.

Until now, keeping track of them mostly meant listening for the males' calls.

A thermal camera in the air lets the team spot the nesting itself.

But first, RNZ journalist Phil Pennington, who has extensively covered New Zealand's new attempts to tap into the lucrative space launch market.

So what you've got is the National Aerospace Centre, Tāwhaki, who are based just south of Christchurch on Kaitoreti Spit, which is next to Lake Ellesmere.

They've been there for several years now, but at the moment they've only got a hangar and a runway, so they don't have rockets, they don't have a launch pad.

But they've been trying to get this off the ground, and what we see is that last year they hooked up with this French company called Space Dreams.

... uh, National Aerospace Centre, uh, at sort of about 45 minutes out of, out of Christchurch by L-

Lake Ellesmere way

...

L- Lake, l- yeah, Lake, Lake Ellesmere.

And, yeah, re- you know, really inspiring to s- to, to see what they've set up there.

This was a, a space that, you know, originally, uh, Rocket Lab were looking at as potentially where they could, they could launch Electron from.

Tāwhaki has swung from aiming to launch rockets when it was set up five years ago to giving up on that to a sharp swing back as the global space industry ramps up.

A spaceport at Kaitareti Spit on Lake Ellesmere Te Waihora, south of Christchurch, would be only the country's second after Rocket Lab's Mahia site.

The study envisages a spaceport with multiple uses, launching small and big rockets.

Tawhaki and Space Streams say talks are going on with government, industry and potential investors in Europe.

Tāwhaki has swung from aiming to launch rockets when it was set up five years ago to giving up on that to a sharp swing back as the global space industry ramps up.

A spaceport at Kaitorete Spit on Lake Ellesmere Te Waihora south of Christchurch would be only the country's second after Rocket Lab's Mahia site.

The study envisages a spaceport with multiple uses, launching small and big rockets.

Tāwhaki and Space Streams say talks are going on with government, industry, and potential investors in Europe.