Feathered friends to the fore in new book
English artist’s bird paintings highlighted
Michael Peryer didn’t think he would write another book about wildlife in and around the Waikanae Estuary and its adjacent lagoons.
He’d already written eight books about the area, delighting children and adults alike.
But one day, while immersed in a vintage book called George Edward Lodge: The Unpublished New Zealand Bird Paintings, his creative writing juices started to flow again.
The old book featured paintings of lots of birds, many of which can be found in the estuary area.
“It’s a very large book with 90 bird paintings in it.
“The book had been at the top of my wardrobe for a long time.
“One day I brought it down, read through it, and thought I could use those paintings in a different way.
“So, I corresponded with the George Edward Lodge Trust, in London, and after several months, I was lucky to get the okay to use his paintings.”
Peryer felt the works of art needed to be shared with a broader audience, which led to his new book, Wild Waikanae.
The book highlights a number of Lodge’s bird paintings, up-to-date photographs of the depicted species by Waikanae Beach photographer Roger Smith, and accompanying stories about each bird by Peryer.
For example — on one page is a painted image of a falcon (kārearea) created by Lodge; on the next page is a falcon photographed by Smith, as well as a write-up about the bird by Peryer.
The second half of the book features photos of birds that weren’t in Lodge’s book, but which frequent the estuary and lagoons now.
Peryer, 86, has had a keen interest in the birdlife around the estuary for about 30 years, which has helped a lot with his individual bird stories.
“I think I’ve ended up with quite a nice book.”
He said Lodge was “an amazing painter” and he felt privileged to highlight the artist’s work.
Lodge, born in 1860, was an English artist who the New Zealand Government approached in the early 1910s to provide plates for a proposed book of New Zealand native birds. He started the project in 1913.
Peryer said Lodge studied bird skin specimens from a number of different collections in Britain, including the Natural History Museum, and eventually supplied 90 plates to the Wildlife Service of the Department of Internal
Affairs in New Zealand.
“Due to the illness of the proposed book’s author, it was never finished, and the plates remained with the Department of Internal Affairs before being transferred to the Dominion Museum in 1948.
“In 1983, the remaining 89 plates were eventually published in the book George Edward Lodge: The Unpublished New Zealand Bird Paintings, with text by C.A. Fleming.”
Peryer, who praised the photography of Smith, and Precise Print for publishing Wild Waikanae, said it was definitely his last book.
“I wasn’t even going to write this book until, one night, I thought, ‘I could use those paintings in that book’.”
He aimed to get the book in places like Kāpiti Knitting and Lotto (Paraparaumu Beach), PaperPlus Coastlands, Cream Design (Ō taki), and
The Bookshelf (Waikanae).
It will also be available via his website www.kapitibirdtours. co.nz