Robin, a commercial pilot from Christchurch, gave detailed sightings of 27 species, but was circumspect about the royal albatross: ‘I have witness accounts of a colony, other than at Taiaroa Head, on the South Island mainland, which the farmer does not want DOC to know about for fear of having his land confiscated. I know the location of this site.’
There was a kind offer of expert help with this book from Amanda, a research assistant to an American Ph. D. student who had studied Pycroft’s petrels on Lady Alice Island: ‘Each evening we headed into the scrub carrying microphones to record the birds’ vocalisations as they circled overhead, preparing to return to their burrows. We would hear little more than faint peeps in the dark … then an enormously unceremonious crashing as each one entered the foliage, hitting various layers on the way down, and made our way to the source to find the bird sitting silent and dazed enough to allow us within reaching distance. Eventually it would waddle in any number of directions, at length finding its burrow, chasing the tuataras out and slowly disappearing inside. Such a bird could only have evolved with so little sense of its own vulnerability in New Zealand.’
There was this strange anecdote from an enthusiastic amateur, Melanie of Waiuku: ‘Last summer, on the way to visit my uncles in Nuhaka, we drove via the Waikaremoana road. It was the most amazing scenery I’d seen. We unfortunately came across a German lady who had had an accident and her car was balanced on the side of a 300-foot drop, saved only by a small tree. My husband and some other people tried to tow her out, and I walked up the road to warn traffic as it was a blind corner. I stood on this hill, and for as far as I could see was bush, and the bird call was deafening – it was scenery you couldn’t see from the car. A large brown bird flew right in front of me being chased by a bright green bird that was much smaller. Only the day before, my husband had given me a book for Christmas, Birds of New Zealand: A Locality Guide by Stuart Chambers. I was able to confirm it was a long-tailed cuckoo being chased by a yellow-crowned parakeet. I was so excited…’ This was literally a cliff-hanger: not a word more on the fate of the unfortunate Frau.
Alan of Rodney rushed in with a wet blanket: ‘Although a New Zealander, I spent more than 30 years abroad, where I did most of my bird-watching. While NZ has many fascinating species, the harsh reality is that we live in an ornithological desert and I seldom go out walking with binoculars these days. I live on a 10-acre block where we have a good quality bush section with mature native trees. After two years here my bird list is a paltry 30 species, of which 16 are introduced – 10 natives and only four endemic species make up the list. I have seen nothing here that you would consider of interest for your book.’ But then he cheered up – he was an OS beach patroller at Muriwai, which afforded rich pickings: ‘It offers the chance of seeing (albeit dead) unusual birds that there is virtually no other way of seeing.’ It moved him to poetry: ‘Large birds, such as the albatrosses, are too heavy so we cut off the heads and only bring this back.’
There were missing birds. Mike Lee, chair of the Auckland Regional Council, sent in a copy of his doleful paper ‘Failed attempts to reintroduce bellbirds to Waiheke Island’, published in Notornis in 2005. The paper explained that 110 bellbirds were released on the island between 1988 and 1991. In late winter 1992, Lee skulked around the island with a playback tape of bellbirds singing. ‘None were seen or heard.’ A more intensive survey was carried out the following spring. ‘None were seen or heard.’ None were seen or heard by anyone on Waiheke by 1993. ‘I note that most people don’t write up their failures,’ Lee remarked in his accompanying letter, ‘which is a pity.’
There were dead birds. Jenny told of holding a song thrush that crashed into her window and died in her hand. Mites poured out of its feathers, then ran around her hand and up her arm: ‘I dropped that thrush.’ Penny told of the kereru that crashed into her windows with such force that ‘they leave an imprint like a white angel. Must be the oil in their feathers.’ In a sad sequel, she buried the dead birds in her citrus orchard, while a ‘bereft’ mate watched on from a rata tree. In a happy sequel, ‘The resulting oranges are damn fine.’
Fortunately, there were live birds too. Joan of Tauranga: ‘I knew that adult pukekos have the parrot method of pecking morsels from their foot while standing on one leg, but did you know that they often feed their young in the same manner, extending a foot clutching the food for the baby to help itself?’ Denise of Hawera wrote about the ‘uncountable number’ of starlings roosting at the end of each summer in a belt of poplar trees running the length of her bull paddock: ‘When they arrive in the early evening, they can cast shadows over the house … The next morning at 7 a.m. – you could set your watch by this – they fly out in batches in a south-east direction.’ She added a peculiarly New Zealand gothic touch: ‘I have noticed that they won’t fly over me when I am in the cowshed.’
More and more birds, live and dead, in more and more correspondence. My thanks to everyone who wrote in – the dozen or so birders, and the 200 or so raw, keen, unornithologised birdwatchers. A special gratitude to Rachel of Takaka, who emailed a short note about observing a flock of shags
