Since moving to the island I've had plenty of time to watch the birds. I don't feed them as I don't want to interfere in their lives; human food isn't the best for birds plus there's plenty of tucker in the bush for them here. I do toss the dead rats into the bush and no doubt the weka find them; I wear gloves so there shouldn't be any human smells to associate food with humans. It's a real buzz, then, to find that some of the birds are really curious about what I'm doing - the little ngirungiru (tomtits) and piwakawaka (fantails) often come to watch me as I work outside and even the korimako (bellbirds) will come for a closer look as I check my rat traps around the boundary. New Zealand bush birds will show themselves when you are still and quiet, so take time to stand still when you are out in the bush.
It's pretty difficult identifying the same bird in the wild - they don't keep still long enough to notice if they have a unique feature but they do tend to have their own territories. Easier by far for humans are small colour bands that get put on either before the young birds fledge or as adults when they are caught. The released toutouwai (bush robins) at Dancing Star are all banded and it was great to see that the bird I saw on Line 4 on 19 January this year was still alive and kicking. Pink-Pink (PP) found me as I trimmed the Line 1 track and I'm picking he was in Pink-Red-Pink's (PRP) territory as PRP was doing all he/she could to shoo PP off. They both followed me for a short distance but Pink-Pink stayed with me for the next 3 hours, down Line 1 to the beach and then back up the cliffs via another track - amazing that a wee bird has that sort of attention span. Every time I stopped to trim ferns/supplejack out she/he'd hop and flutter in front of me.
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| Pink-Pink on one of the rat traps |
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| What a cutie! |
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| Do I look prettier with the bands like this?? |
The Weka Family have been around a few times lately - they are also curious fellows and wander around unconcerned that I am watching them. The young ones keep close to the adult bird (?Mum) and even though they look fully grown, the parent bird is still feeding them occasionally.
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| Weka checking out my vege garden |
The annual bird listening surveys have come around again with the purpose of counting all kiwi, morepork/ruru and weka calls over a 2 hour period in the evening. On calm, dry evenings over the next 6 weeks or so you'll find a number of us wrapped up warm and recording bird noises, compass bearings and estimated distances plus any other information that will help with identifying bird populations around the village. Three of the six sites are within the SIRCET project area (ie rat and possum trapped) and the others are dotted around outside the project area. Last Wednesday was a gorgeous night under the stars and I heard 4 kiwi calls and 5 ruru calls - I think they all came from the same bird and halfway through the listening period the ruru called for 16 minutes - about once every 5-10 seconds and didn't get one reply. My time finished at 9pm so the female/male kiwi duet at 8.58pm just made it in time. A magical end to the evening - roll on the next suitable night.
