Taking Our Ears to to Tiritiri Matangi

Ever since we arrived in New Zealand and friends learned that we are bird-watchers, a common refrain has been ‘Have you been to Tiritiri Matangi yet?”

Now we can happily answer, “yes.”  In the company of Jane Banfield and her 5-year-old grandson Harry (pictured above), we spent Saturday roaming this slice of New Zealand nature as it might have been before people arrived here.

Tiritiri Matangi is a small island in the Hauraki Gulf just 75 minutes by ferry from Auckland. Since the 1980s it has been terra-formed so as to become a breeding place for endemic fauna and flora — particularly birds. Between 1984 and 1994, 283,000 trees were planted, regenerating 60% of the island’s forest. Essential to this endeavor is the effort to make and keep the island pest-free. That means no rats, rabbits, stoats, mice, rainbow skinks, or argentine ants — anything that harbors an interest in nests and eggs. Before boarding the ferry, it was somewhat amusing to be asked to check backpacks for any peripatetic mice, rats, or ants. (I’m glad we forgot to include them today!)

From farmland to bush, the island has been transformed and work continues both to keep it pest-free and to breed endemic species which can then be exported to other similar endeavors across the country. Not only is New Zealand a very young country geologically, it is a land that has been and continues to be totally managed by humankind.

Our extraordinary take-away from our visit this past weekend was the soundscape around a couple of feeders. There we heard and saw a profusion of korimako (bellbirds). The video associated with the picture below  captures the incredible sound of joyous bellbirds. You may also catch a glimpse of a few hihi (stitchbirds)  —  both these birds are nectar feeders and go a bit crazy over sugar water!

Three bellbirds with a stichbird in the middle

 

We enjoy playing with collective nouns and so we decided that we had heard a “peel of bellbirds”!

Other sightings included the tui (common all over), tieke (saddleback), toutouwai (North Island robin),  and the big fat kereru (wood pigeon).

The kokako

A new bird for us was the kokako (blue wattled crow), a bird that was on the endangered list but is slowly recovering and now has over 1,600 pairs on the North Island. We got a lovely look at his black “sunglasses” and his blue wattle: unfortunately, as you’ll hear if you click here for the video, he wasn’t very talkative.

 

popokotea (whitehead)

We also saw the popokotea (whitehead), a small songbird that has had its natural territory diminished to just the southern part of the North Island, but has been successfully reintroduced to Tiritiri Matangi island, where they thrive because of lack of predators.

It was an impressive collection of birds to see, but we will forever remember our visit to Tiritiri Matangi much more for the incredible wealth of sound that poured into our ears in this magical place.