Lo-tech nets as Kiwis learn more about our native birds
A bird in the hand is worth a whole heap of conservation cred for this Kiwi couple. Amanda Saxton joins the hunt.
‘‘No, no, no, you silly bugger,’’ scolds Morag Fordham, as a North Island robin crashes into her net.
Snaring the right species is difficult on the Hauraki Gulf’s Tiritiri Matangi, a sanctuary island 30km north of Auckland where laughing saddlebacks and rogue robins can dart past your nose at any moment.
Morag and her husband Simon are trying to catch New Zealand’s tiniest bird – the rifleman, named for its military-green feathers and weighing the same as two 10-cent coins – so they can band adolescents’ bare ankles.
Simon helped bring the atrisk species to the island 10 years ago. He’s still mockmiffed the rifleman wasn’t Bird of the Year in 2009 after his rigorous campaign made it the first-ever contestant to get more than 1000 votes.
They were scuppered by the Bank of New Zealand, he claims. At the 11th hour, the bank encouraged staff to vote for the kiwi, relegating the rifleman into second place.
Nevertheless, the little bird has thrived at Tiritiri Matangi: the original 60 have about 300 living descendants. Simon says this is an ‘‘exciting result’’ given its population is declining elsewhere in the country.
‘‘Once riflemen are lost from an area, they don’t naturally recolonise. They’re very prone to predation, certainly don’t fly over water and don’t generally even fly over open ground.’’
Before we set up the net, Simon finds us a rifleman nest. It’s a woven sphere of twigs and leaf skeletons with an interior lined by scavenged feathers from other island residents: lurid green tufts of the kakariki, a chestnut-tipped saddleback feather, and down of the little spotted kiwi.
This one’s been abandoned by its rifleman family and taken over by a tree weta.
We also encounter a tuatara and a slew of fluffy brown quail chicks bobbing along the trail next to Hobbs Beach. On the shore are long-limbed dotterel chicks in perfect camo gear. Their dark speckled backs look like pebbles, and their bellies are the palest grey.
The Fordhams first moored their yacht at Hobbs Beach more than two decades ago, as Morag had been enchanted by a takahe during a previous visit.
The couple has volunteered on
Tiritiri Matangi ever since.
Nowadays, up to 170 visitors arrive each morning by ferry. On Wednesday, a group of elderly women sat on the lower deck doing crosswords cut from newspapers. Nan Rothwell, 92, and Isabel Still, 79, planted some of the first trees that transformed the island from farmland to forest, after the Department of Conservation slated Tiritiri Matangi to become a kind of biodiversity lifeboat for New Zealand’s pestridden mainland.
Still remembers a pioneering vibe to those early visits. You’d arrive by dinghy with your own spade, and go home buoyed by the shared vision of a future bird haven. ‘‘For us early ones it felt like a family, like it was our island,’’ she says.
‘‘It came from such humble beginnings, so seeing what it’s become is very special.’’
Rothwell wished us luck in spying the notoriously shy rifleman. Not only are they tiny and cunningly camouflaged, but it’s a speedy bird with a highpitched squeak not every ear can hear, she warned.
Simon, however, is armed with a recording of their barely audible call to lure lurking riflemen to the track. The robin arrives first, but a female rifleman is next, followed by her un-banded son.
We admire their scimitarshaped beaks as the Fordhams gently extract the riflemen from the net.
After they’re weighed, the young male acquires a set of leg bands making him look like he’s had a full season of music festivals.
‘‘You’ve gotta stick up for the little guy,’’ Simon says fondly, letting the birds fly back into the surrounding Coprosma.
‘‘Once riflemen are lost from an area, they don’t naturally recolonise.’’ Simon Fordham