A ‘loot of weka’ and bird buddies
Melissa Boardman is a Wellingtonbased illustrator with a passion for New Zealand's native birds. Her illustrations are drawn from her own experiences.
Boardman frequently visits sanctuaries and offshore islands, where she spends time observing birds in their natural habitats.
Her latest book Birds of New Zealand Collective Nouns features a variety of species that live in a range of habitats, from dense forest to the vast ocean. It has illustrations of more than 90 different bird species, each accompanied by their own unique collective noun. Boardman answered some questions:
Who came up with the collective nouns used in this book?
They are a mixture of existing nouns, nouns that were adapted from similar overseas birds, and ones that we invented for the book. Each collective noun was carefully chosen to reflect the unique characteristics of the species.
What’s your favourite collective noun?
There are a few that I invented that I'm pretty proud of. One is ‘a loot of weka', it sums up the cheeky nature of the weka very well as they are known for their thieving antics. I also really love ‘a siren of saddlebacks'. Having spent a lot of time in the forest with these rare birds I am familiar with their rather alarming calls, they are very piercing if they call out in close range. One fact
I learned when researching for this book is that when moreporks call to each other it's often two males disputing over territories. ‘An echo of moreporks' reflects the way their calls bounce off each other and how they seem to linger and echo when calling at night.
What medium did you use to create the illustrations?
The illustrations are hand painted in gouache, which is an opaque watercolour. Gouache is my favourite medium, with it I can achieve bold colours and it dries flat and matte. It was originally used by designers, and is perfect for creating work that is to be reproduced as stationery or printed in a book.
How did you decide what birds to include in the book?
It was really important to me to represent a variety of birds in the book, not just the popular forest birds. We have a lot of species of wetland birds, most of which are secretive and not very well known. New Zealand is home to a vast range of seabirds and I wanted to make sure we included a lot of seabirds in the book too.
What do you hope people gain from the book?
I hope that some people discover a new bird that they didn't know existed, or learn something new about a bird that they wouldn't have known otherwise. I really hope that readers enjoy the collective nouns and they become widely used. I'm looking forward to using them in the wild!