An evening with Neville Peat

Neville Peat is a renowned author and was awarded the Creative New Zealand Michael King Writers' Fellowship in 2007. His books on Stewart Island have been well researched and I often consult his 'Rakiura Heritage' book for island history. He has recently updated his 'Stewart Island Rakiura National Park' title and returned to Stewart Island last week to give a talk on some interesting characters.

The hermit of Whero Rock was Lance Richdale, a teacher and ornithologist born in 1900 who went to extreme lengths to research birds. His pioneering work with albatross is reflected in the naming of the Richdale Observatory at Taiaroa Head which was opened in 1983, the year that Richdale died. He spent his holidays on a lump of rock in Paterson Inlet studying titi (muttonbirds) and initially lived in a tent but later in a small shed that was built for him.

The evening talk was held at the Community Centre and when I came outside I was greeted by a group of kaka who put on the after-talk entertainment! At the bottom is a short video (6.6Mb) of them making an unusual noise that I hadn't heard before.

Love that flash of red under their wings