Eyes out for new birds
When a strange bird alighted on a hut in remote South Westland it just happened to be spotted by a family that recognised the Australian visitor. It was the first time the species had been recorded in New Zealand and if it hadn’t been for their keen eyes the bird’s brief visit might have gone unnoticed.
Robert Long and his family live at Gorge River, a two-day walk to the nearest road end at the far reaches of the West Coast. The bird turned up after a westerly storm in 2008. Both Robert and his wife grew up in Australia and recognised the bird as a magpielark, Grallina cyanoleuca.
Though the sighting was mentioned several times, it has only just been officially signed off – adding the magpie-lark to the list of birds in New Zealand.
Te Papa vertebrate curator Dr Colin Miskelly is also the convener for the group which decides what is included in the official records. The Birds New Zealand records appraisal committee gets about 90 unusual bird sightings a year, although it is rare for a new species to be added.
Some unusual birds make waves when they are spotted, like when an emperor penguin turned up on a Kapiti beach in 2011. Otherwise there is a certain amount of serendipity involved in spotting a rare arrival. Someone needs to see it, of course, but they also have to have an inkling that there’s something unusual about what they’ve spotted.
‘‘That’s the reality of a country with a small population,’’ Miskelly said. ‘‘There must be a lot of interesting stuff that never gets detected and never gets reported.’’
That might not be too hard when the case is a penguin, but how many people would know when they spotted an unusual woodswallow?
Last September, two Japanese bird-watchers were on a two-day trip to Stewart Island when they did just that. They knew enough about New Zealand birdlife to know the bird was unusual and managed to take three photos. Later their photos confirmed the first sighting of a dusky woodswallow, Artamus
cyanopterus, in New Zealand. Recording the first appearances of new species in New Zealand isn’t just for bird enthusiasts – though there is a certain gravitas within their community that comes with bagging the first confirmed sighting. Miskelly said if a species was able to settle and start breeding here it could be important to know when it first arrived and how long it had taken to settle. The biggest excitement would be if a species showed up that was thought to be extinct.
Paddy Freaney’s 1993 photograph of what he said was a moa, near the Bealey Hotel in Arthur’s Pass, was submitted to the committee. Miskelly said that was considered to be a hoax.
But a few years ago the committee gave the tick to an apparent sighting of a South Island kokako near Reefton in the West Coast. The orange-wattled forest bird was thought to be extinct, with the last verified sighting in 1967. But a reassessment has classified the sub-species as data deficient rather than extinct and the committee reassessed the 2007 sighting.
Any substantial evidence of the South Island kokako has yet to appear, but if it does it there will be sharp eyes to consider its validity and plenty of healthy scepticism to boot.
Social media makes it even easier for people to get answers on anything unusual they spot. As well as birding forums, the Naturewatch website allows people to upload photos of anything they see and ask for help identifying it.
Miskelly said a Naturewatch photo kicked off a small debate when a penguin was spotted on Stewart Island. Some said it was an emperor, others said it was a king penguin. Miskelly verified it was a king penguin – the fourth record for Stewart Island.
There might be fewer bird watchers in New Zealand than somewhere like the United Kingdom, but with people keeping their eyes peeled and their cameras ready we might yet spot the rare new birds arriving on our shores.