Tui raids and clematis

My new smartphone may be a step forward in technology but using it as a wifi hotspot, and connecting it to a Bluetooth handset, uses battery at an eye-watering rate. Instead of encouraging me to explore its new features, I'm afraid I've rejected its wasteful use of power and now pick up a book rather than get online to write blogs!

My time for catching up on section work will be harder now as the island winds up for its summer season. Most of our visitors come between Labour Weekend (October) to Easter (late March/April); some to tramp the Rakiura Track Great Walk, a number will be cruise ship day visitors, the crib-owners will be down for their summer holidays and lots of tourists come to discover one of New Zealand's best kept secrets. I know I'm biased but there's not many places in New Zealand where you see two tui raids, flowering native clematis and kiwi footprints - all in the 15 minute walk to work this morning!

Wonderful clumps of native clematis flowering throughout the bush

Can you spot the flowering clematis across the valley?

Tui raids are amazing and well worth making the trip here in October, despite the changeable weather. Tui get very possessive of 'their' food trees (mostly the native fuchsia) and guard them jealousy - woe betide any bird that comes in for a nibble. But when tui band together in flocks of 100 or more, the resident pair have no show of protecting their tree. The only sounds you hear are the beating of wings and occasionally a mewing (?crying) noise from the tui trying to fend them off. With fuchsia trees either side of Main Road, often I'll get caught in the flock flying across the road - I put some video up last year in this blog.

Spring is also orchid time; the chiloglottis orchids are starting to push through the soil but I've yet to see a greenhood orchid flower so far, they're much later than last year. There are lots of spider orchids around and lots of green spikes which will be flowering sun orchids in a couple of months.

Small Chiloglottis cornuta orchids pushing through

Close-up of chiloglottis orchid leaves - the flower will come later

These fungi are found in the same patch as the chiloglottis orchids - I
wonder if they are symbiotic?

A bushful of birds

The spring growth on the kotukutuku, Fuchsia excorticata or tree fuchsia, not only clothes this deciduous tree in green but provides food and nectar for the birds. Tui, especially, are starting to loudly proclaim territories and chase off intruders. Walking home from work yesterday I found myself in the middle of a 'tui raid' where a flock of 50-100 tui descend on a group of fuchsia - there's too many for the resident pair to fend off. I got 3 minutes of video but it's 350Mb. I made this 5Mb 22s 'email quality clip' but although it gives you a wee taste it doesn't play as well on Blogger as on my computer - if anyone is interested then I'll look at putting up a higher quality video on YouTube. Talking of YouTube - here's some great footage of kiwi on one of Rakiura's tramping tracks (opens in new window).

These raids will continue over the next few weeks. A couple of years ago I was walking home with a visitor when more than 100 tui flew from one side of the road to the other - all you could hear was the beating of tui wings. Magic!

My camera, though great at macro photos, only has a 4x optical zoom so it's not the best for bird shots - I'll have to resurrect my 14 year old Olympus C2100.

The kereru are back in town

Tui in Fuchsia excorticata

There's only been a couple of rats caught in the last month on my section but both were large adults so great that they're out of the breeding population. Our wee native birds take such a hit with the introduced pests and I'm so glad that Rakiura doesn't have any mustelids. Aotearoa's birds are well worth fighting for and there are lots of opportunities for volunteers to check traps either on community or conservation land - google 'trap volunteers' and see if there's anything near you.

Female adult ship rat

Tui attack

Tui are at their noisiest in springtime with lots of territorial aggression and mating behaviour. At times a single tui will blunder into another's patch and is immediately chased off with much flapping of wings. Tui will take on kaka and kereru to protect their food source and with the native fuchsia flowering at present, there's a lot of tui around.

Tui on kowhai - taken when I lived in town

An island tui in the flowering cherry tree

An unforgettable experience for me is being in the middle of a tui raid; flocks of 50-100 birds decide to attack a good food source knowing that there is safety in numbers. Just the sound of furious wing flapping - and sometimes the mewling of the tui whose patch they are raiding as it futilely tries to protect its nectar source. I had my camera out ready and waiting when it last happened to me but as soon as I pressed 'record' a message came up with 'insufficient space on the memory card'! Rats!!

Other birds are also active; the kereru are back out of the bush and feeding on the flowering broom and fresh leaf growth. I want to get rid of the broom but love seeing these large birds balancing on the thin branches. I do have to watch out when working outside as sometimes the kereru fly low and fast not far from me! Flocks of kakariki fly overhead and I heard the first pīpīwharauroa (shining cuckoo) of the season on 25 October - it's flown all the way from the Solomon Islands to mate and lay eggs that other birds (generally grey warblers and brown creepers) will raise. The most common bird heard around home is the korimako (bellbird), possibly because I don't have many fuchsia trees here which bring the tui.

I didn't realise the influence that territories have on bird distribution; in town you put out some bird seed and sparrows, blackbirds, gulls, mynahs and starlings all fly in and seem to co-exist. I don't feed the birds here but I think the birds would be less tolerant of sharing their territory with others.

NatureWatch.org.nz celebrated its anniversary with a radio interview on last Friday's Nine to Noon show on RadioNZ. Listen to Colin Meurk talking about 'citizen science' here (9 mins 47 secs long, opens in a new window) or check out their Facebook page here.