Vignette 7
The Birds
Birds are much of what New Zealand is all about. Birds are a paramount ingredient that lends Orapiu its flavor. From the edge of low tide all the way up the steep bush to the ridge is a five star aviary. There’s something for everyone. If you wandered around for a while you would see birds that every man, woman and child in New Zealand grow up holding very dear. The main players are: the sleek black Tui, the fat clumsy Woodpigeon, Mr. Kingfisher, little Fantail and Silvereye, the outlandish Pukeko, one legged Oyster Catchers and even colorful Rosella parrots. There are seasonal paradise ducks who try to raise families where dogs patrol. You may also see the antagonist: the imported Indian Mynah who steal other bird’s eggs and have a very poor reputation with the locals. They are considered very unwelcome immigrants.
The trees along the ridge form a semi circle which provides the birds with a perfect highway to fly to work in the a.m. and home to roost in the late afternoon. Our deck is a wonderful place to view the comings and goings as well as listen to the sounds that characterize each species. At night it is easy to pick out the native owl because it calls out its own name, “Morepork.”
Now that Tipi has gone to rabbit catching heaven there are more birds that come into our immediate backyard. When there are throngs of little bugs zzzing about, the fantails arrive. Fantails splay their tail feathers in an extravagant scalloped fan. The fan acts as a rudder helping them to dip, flip and dive in the air like an acrobat. Every afternoon a fantail perches on Stu’s tomato stakes. It flies out from the stake, makes a loop and comes right back to grab on for a moment before lifting off again. I spent a few days filming a fantail so that I could slow the frames down to draw the actual flight path for a painting called, “Fantail Trails.” When I zoomed in on the still frames I could see the fantail’s wide open beak and the tiny bugs it was chasing.
As the summer fruit disappears and the leaves begin dropping, the fantails come out the thick bush and camp out with us for a while. Fantails are in flit mode when in the bare branches of the plum trees, changing positions one flit at a time as if dancing the Texas two-step. They are gregarious birds, that fly around your head when you are walking through the bush. My friend Melva speaks their language and actually calls them to come up close within our reach.
It is breakfast time and there is a Tui in the frangipani tree. The top branches are eye level with my studio deck and this gives me a perfect spot for Tui watching. I wish it to be for Tui photographing but they are too cunning for my camera. Mr. Tui on this morning is jumping aggressively from branch to branch and hanging precariously upside down to get the best connection for beak to flower nectar mining. Tui is the most beloved birds in New Zealand, and I love them as well. They have the most unique complicated songs and short calls. Their music drifts back and forth across the bush setting up a wide area network of Tui communication. The song is intricate and hard to describe, like an arpeggio filled with clear bell tones, along with occasional clicks and coughs inserted for effect. Even more brilliant is that in the middle of the run the Tui will jump into a sound register that is impossible for humans to hear. You can see their beaks open and their bodies in full song motion, but hear not a thing coming out. Then they break back into human auditory range with a couple of coughs, clicks and trills and wait until their cousins across the ridge answer back. If that isn’t wonderful enough then a final element that completes their incredible symphony is their amazing mix of imitations like phone rings from their unique environment.
When you can watch this happen from a couple of meters away it is magic. Tui body language is very important. Usually a very sleek black bird that is built for super sonic flying speeds you wouldn’t expect that they can fluff out into a Pillsbury dough boy shape when having a conversation across the tree tops. But they do puff out tremendously, causing their shock of white chin feathers to flip out at a forty five degree angle during an aria. On this sunny morning I can see the back feathers that usually look black from afar, now showing their true iridescent blue and green. I can also see the cape of long fine white feathers that run like fingers across his shoulders. They shift back and forth like a hula skirt when he moves his head around. His long nectar beak is sharp at the end and looks fierce. New Zealanders call young men that race their tricked out cars, “boy racers.” Tui are essentially “boy racers,” swooping in and around the tightly packed Ti tree. The sound of their feathers through the air is distinct, and reminds me of the sound that playing cards clothes pinned to the spokes of my bike when I was a kid. Such a cool bird.
The antithesis of the Tui is the Pukeko, a very colorful clown of the swamp. Pooks have squatty goose shaped bodies that look disproportionate attached to such long spindly orange legs and feet. But it is their long funny feet that help them exist in the swamp and more power to them. Pukeko are noisy and sexed crazed. We have a herd of Pukeko that run around the bottom of our property with their necks stretched out and back black tail feathers bobbing up and down furiously revealing white pantaloons underneath. As they run their ungainly run, you see the white pantaloons flash and disappear, like a warning beacon. They look ridiculous when they try to run fast in order to build up steam for take off. The flight path is reckless and low to the ground, and always includes a clumsy landing. This gawky bird was not built for flight. One Maori children’s book shared a legend that living permanently in the swamp without the skill of flight was Pukeko’s punishment for once upon a time being very self-centered about his beautiful colors. This fits.
Scott has spent many hours landscaping the border of our property to take the place of a barbed wire fence that was used in yonder year to keep cows in one paddock and then the other. In one corner of the property he planted a banana tree in hopes that we would eventually have a constant supply of bananas in remembrance of sailing through the south pacific. This banana tree grew happily for three years and was possibly five feet tall until one beautiful spring day. A ravenous Pukeko family must have been short of their favorite roots after a long wet winter, so they went after the heart of the palm with a fury that I can only describe as piranhaesque. Despite shooing them away every two minutes, we could not protect the banana tree from these maniacs. Within two hours they had eaten their way through the delectable heart of palm center from the top down to the earth, leaving the broad untouched fronds to wither in the sun. I asked Stu once if Pukeko was good to eat. He told me he had a great Pukeko recipe.
Find a big pot.
Add water, salt, pepper, one Pukeko and one river stone.
Boil for five hours.
Throw away the Pukeko and eat the stone.
For some time I held the opinion that Pukeko were not the smartest birds in the roost. I based this on the vast number of road kill statistics between Orapiu and Matiatia in a given year. So I am happy to admit my error after seeing a Pukeko team up with Tipi to fight an intruder stoat caught slinking through the lower part of the paddock. Tipi and I were on the deck around lunchtime and out of the corner of my eye spotted something moving through the grass. Tipi definitely saw it too and made a B-line down to the front. The head Pukeko showed up as Tipi went after the stoat and actually stepped in to head the stoat off. The stoat took cover under William’s overturned dinghy with Tipi waiting on one side and King Pukeko on the other side. What a hoot to see such dissimilar beings working toward the same cause. I gave up waiting to see the end of the battle because Tipi was still out there around dusk; long after the King went back to his herd.
Mal lives in a caravan on the edge of the swamp. He has been waiting for resource consent to build his dream house. He lives in a semi permanent camping mode and has to walk through the paddock each day to take his dog Possum down to the wharf for a drink of water and to wash up. He has trained the Pukeko family to eat from his hand and they follow him through the swamp looking like the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Stu on the other hand detests these birds and shoots them when they get under his skin. He claims to be keeping the numbers down as well as providing feathers to a Maori woman who is making a ceremonial cape.
In Stu’s defense, there is no one who loves native birds more, so when I told him that I saw several feral cats moving about the paddock he decided to do something to protect our beautiful feathered friends. First he pulled out his gun and worked all day calibrating it. This took much longer because he was watching the tennis match at the same time. He drew a small bulls-eye on a scrap of paper, taped it to a stake located in my yard, and proceeded to practice shooting until he was consistently hitting the target dead on. He then dug out a fish from his freezer and tied it to our little peach tree. Good thing the tennis match was still on because he could see the TV from his sniper’s nest. The view from my house showed a darkened room with puffy pink roman curtains, a window cracked open and a foot length of gun muzzle sticking out.
The first feral feline showed up several hours later. The phone rang and when I answered a mysterious voice said, “Kelley, please verify the target.” I went out on the deck, looked across at the Lee Harvey Oswald window and gave Stu the universal thumbs up. I felt like it was the perfect opportunity to say, “The eagle has landed,” but I thought it might be wasted on Stu since he doesn’t always relate to my sense of humor. I ran back inside and waited for the pop. He nailed that unwanted predator cleanly through the head. Stu proudly told me to fetch the undertaker. This job had been assigned to Murphy. I could tell that Stu was anxious to set up for the next varmint and in fact by the time Rita and I had returned from our walk Stu had shot two more. Murphy told me that each cat died happily. I gave him a disgusted look. “True, true,” he said, “Those cats thought it was Christmas morning when they saw the huge fish, and just as they were about to sink their teeth into their feast they were taken out so quickly they had no choice but to die extremely happy.” So goes our life with the birds.
