I Love Birds

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Latish in life, I’ve come to realise I love birds. I realised that when I visited the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch recently and got to see my first Takahe. For most of my life I’ve regarded birds as secondary to other real animal life and I’ve thought that bird-watchers were, frankly, bird-brains.

But birds have been quietly sneaking up on me and it was the sight of my first real-life Takahe that brought that fact home to me.

As a kid I had had a pet budgie. He was called, “Pretty Boy” as most budgies were it seems even though nobody seems to have been sure if he was a boy or a girl. Anyway, Pretty Boy was found dead in the bottom of his cage one day and that was that. No tears, no ceremonial burying of a loved family pet.

I remember the excitement that erupted around New Zealand in 1948 when Doctor Orbell announced that he had discovered a bird in Fiordland that had previously been thought to be extinct. As a kid this quite excited me as dinosaurs were also extinct and while a bird was a billion miles away from Tyrannosaurus Rex — or was it? — if they could find a Takahe, maybe anything was possible and a Pterodactyl might be found next. Only we didn’t call the bird that Doctor Orbell found “Takahe” back then, for some reason were referred to them by their Latin name, Notornis which I have always preferred to Takahe.

Prior to Willowbank, I had always thought of Takahe as being a slightly less loopy and slightly more kindly disposed version of the Pukeko — same dark blue feathers, red beak and weird feet. But in real life it’s a very large bird — big and plump and for some reason when I first saw my first one the first word that flashed into my mind was “roast”. It looked incredibly edible! Maybe the Maori knew a thing or two?

But that Takahe, or Notornis, triggered a rush of memories that made me realise that, damn it, I like birds.

Why, a few weeks earlier I had even driven out of my way to go to the beach and stand with a couple of hundred other people gawking at the Emperor Penguin, that was eventually called Happy Feet, as he stood looking totally lost and miserable on Peka Peka Beach north of Wellington. I watched in dismay as he suddenly tipped forward, lay flat on his belly and began eating sand.

I felt both guilty and angry. Guilty because I was using this noble creature to satisfy my curiosity and angry that he had been left on the beach for so long, in deteriorating health, the subject of sticky-beakers like me. So I sneaked off.

But it’s not just the big, rare and spectacular birds like Notornis and Emperor Penguins that have taken my fancy.

I love seagulls because they appear to fly for the sheer pleasure of it. Other birds appear to fly simply to get from one place to another — but seagulls fly for the sheer love of it. Swooping, soaring, diving, hovering — all for no apparent reason. Ignore the fact that they are, scavengers, common as dirt and incredibly noisy, they are a very good looking bird. Elegant, well proportioned and nicely coloured. I like seagulls.

I also like Shags, although I prefer to call them Cormorants. I watched one stretching his wings in the sun the other day and wanted to take him home.

As I write this, outside my Oamaru window a couple of blackbirds are courting. Their antics in the air are all tease — they fly towards one another and just before collision break off only to return and do it all again.

On the ground, one scuttles along the other appearing to chase it. Then the leader stops, turns around and they reverse the process. They look identical to me, so I hope the boy knows who is the girl and vice versa.

I also love ducks — Paradise Ducks in particular and the way they mate for life. You seem them in paddocks and pasture — Mister Duck over there and Mrs Duck just a few metres away. I may have already told you the story about a woman I know who was driving to her home in the country and there were a pair of Paradise Ducks who’d taken up residence nearby. One night, she caught a glimpse of Mister Duck, standing at the side of the road alongside the body of his mate. She’d obviously been struck by a car and he didn’t leave her side until he too was hit by a car several days later.

But I also like hawks — and magpies.

I like both the imported Aussie hawks and our native hawks — or falcons as they are perhaps more correctly known.

The native birds are smaller and they flap their wings a lot in flight giving rise to the term sparrow hawk. These are feisty birds who farmers hate because they are so darned aggressive in pursuing their evening meal. Our falcons are killers pure and simple. Unlike their Aussie cousins who have taken up residence, they won’t touch road kill. There are stories of native falcons — Te Karere — chasing chickens right inside farm houses.

But the Australian imports are wonderful fliers — they glide on the air currents — both at stupendous height and just above ground level. They are the masters of the New Zealand skies in that regard.

While they will eat carrion quite happily, they are not averse to a bit of fresh kill. I watched in awe one day as a hawk circled a paddock and suddenly dropped, clutching a hapless Pukeko and then struggled back into the sky. It was a bit of a lift and poor old Mister Pukeko wasn’t at all happy about it. He flapped and kicked, but was no match for the hawk.

I mentioned the incident that night on the radio and a caller, a guide from Mount Cook, told me that he often saw hawks drop on rabbits and hares, carry them aloft and kill them by dropping them from some height.

The other days in the Mackenzie Country I watched a couple of hawks on the prowl, gliding low and seeing what was available for lunch. They must have got a bit close to an early magpie nest because up from the ground zoomed this black and white rocket and although much smaller, set about giving the hawks what for. It was like a dogfight over London during the Battle of Britain and the smaller, faster, more manoeuvrable magpie chased and harried the hawks which eventually fled.

But my favourite bird is the Kea. I’d love one around the house. As a kid I can remember that Keas were regarded by South Island high country farmers as such a nuisance there was a half crown bounty on a set of beaks. So they were shot. In their thousands.

Today, of course, they are totally protected.

I saw a David Attenborough documentary on Keas a couple of years ago that showed these birds in a remarkable light. They are smarter than many human beings — able to solve problems with consummate ease and are cute, cheeky and loveable, albeit a bit destructive.

I was enormously disappointed on a recent trip through Arthur’s Pass not to see a single Kea at the Otira Gorge lookout, a place where Keas traditionally act as though they own the place and destroy cars. Not a single one. It was odd, almost eerie.

And then, within days, we learn that five young Kea were shot and dumped on a picnic table in that very area.

I just felt I needed to share my revelation with someone.