“That Old Puriri Tree” -  May 2004
The old puriri tree still stands at Awaawaroa Bay Eco-Village and continues to attract and harbour various bird species.  Despite the fact that most of the tree is dead it still manages to produce berries that attract kereru.  Its neighbour the taraire also had something interesting to share earlier in the Autumn that attracted up to four kereru at once.

The starlings that hatched out in great numbers in the spring, joined hundreds of others and spent a number of days practising their group aerobatic skills, flying around and around in a huge flock until they obviously felt they were ready to “spread their wings” and venture further out in the world.  I expect a number of them to return in the very early spring.  Introduced passerines (sparrow, chaffinch, gold finch, yellowhammer and cirl bunting) seem to love this tree for nesting too and enjoyed eating the grass seed I put out (to grow grass!)

The mynas watched our movements very carefully and never entered their nests when they thought we might be watching.  The tree is so tall and old that I haven’t been able to get up and block off the holes.  On various occasions a number of magpies have roosted in the top of the tree and called out to the world early in the morning however a very efficient magpie trap has dealt to them.  The trap baited with dead mice also managed to catch a rat in each end one night and then another lone rat a few nights later.  However it hasn’t worked in this way since.

The kingfishers were very busy all spring tirelessly flying from the puriri to catch insects and small creatures and flying across the gully to its nest in another big, fully alive puriri tree. The shags and paradise ducks haven’t been back.  Brown quail and pheasants continue to enjoy the cleared ground in the orchard and have raised a number of babies.  The fantails seemed to disappear for the summer but turned up to feast on the fruit flies and other insects that are attracted by the ripe figs in Autumn.  Wax eyes also arrived back to peck out the insides of the ripe figs.

Grey warblers (riroriro) seem to be getting a bit friendlier and it is easier to catch a good long glimpse before they disappear back into the bushes.  Pukekos continue to plague all the gardens here and seem to be able to cultivate a taste for whatever is easy to get at - currently tomatoes that are just starting to turn from green!  They are quite good at stomping on the plants and squashing them down to get easy pickings.  They are also good at making little leaps into the air to pick apples and any citrus that looks tasty.

Harrier hawks have been feasting on the over abundant field mice and frequently thrill us with their aerobatics in the thermals that rise up the gully.   Ruru (morepork) like to let us know of their presence each evening and also manage to give us great fright zooming by with a quiet flutter in the dark and shrieking loudly as they go.  The highlight of the bird watching summer was seeing a mother banded rail wander out into the open in the wetland with 3 babies while we stood by and watched for quite some time.  They normally are so elusive out here that you are lucky to even catch a glimpse.  We helped out again with the monitoring of numerous traps and bait stations out at the shell bank in the bay for a very long breeding season but unfortunately the results weren’t so great as dotterel and oyster catcher nests were lost repeatedly in the high tides.

“That Old Puriri Tree” - August 2004
The old puriri tree still stands at Awaawaroa Bay Eco-Village.  Even though we have been having some hard morning frosts - spring is definitely in the air.  The pair of paradise shelducks are back carrying out their bizarre and noisy courtship.  They haven’t been seen “roosting” in the trees yet this year but are often in the same part of the gully, a number of metres apart - honking loudly at each other.  The pair of grey ducks is back too - often tapping at the glass on our french doors begging for food.  The mamma has just hatched 12 ducklings!  

A pair of sky larks came hunting for bugs in the grass outside our kitchen window and I saw the female catch a large black fluffy caterpillar.  They aren’t singing much yet but no doubt will once the days get warmer.   The waxeyes have been feasting on the red berries on the inkweed plant, which is poisonous to humans but obviously isn’t a problem for birds.  No wonder it spreads so readily.

On sunny days last month we were amazed to watch a great congregation of fantails doing their crazy aerobatics together above the firewood acacia trees.  On one occasion I counted 18 - which was quite a feat since they wouldn’t stay still!  According to “The Field Guide to the Birds of NZ” by Heather & Robertson, ”Fantails are strongly territorial while breeding, but territories break down during the autumn moult, and small loose flocks of 10 - 20 birds are sometimes seen in winter.” They seem to have dissipated now - off to make their nests “a neat cup of dried grass, strips of bark, moss and cobwebs, lined with fine fern fibres, hair and feathers, and with a tail of nest material hanging about 10cm down from the bottom of the nest” ibidem, elsewhere.  A friendly pair visits us daily when the lid is lifted off the outdoor composting toilet and they flutter back and forth catching the little white flies and midges that get disturbed.

I enjoyed an extended close-up encounter with a grey warbler - once again in the bush by the composting toilet.  Their cheerful warbling song always brings me great joy but it isn’t often that I get to spot them and when I do it is normally a brief encounter so this was special.  “The Grey Warbler is the only host to the Shining Cuckoo on the NZ mainland.  First clutches escape parasitism because they are laid before the cuckoos arrive, but often Shining Cuckoos replace an egg in the second clutch with one of their own, and eventually the bigger and faster-growing cuckoo chick expels all other eggs or chicks.” ibidem  This isn’t such a big deal for the Grey Warbler because it is common and widespread. 

On a walk today we were thrilled to watch nine Tui going back and forth between five flowering kowhai trees around one of the eco-village’s ponds.  One large one spent all his time chasing the others from one tree to the other trying to stake out his territory.

“That Old Puriri Tree” -  December 2004

That old puriri tree still stands at Awaawaroa Bay Eco-Village hosting a multitude of different bird life during late spring.

The pair of kingfisher are back nesting in the puriri across the gully.  They use every available high vantage point to spot their next mouthful.  Their eye sight must be extraordinary as they seem to be able to spot small insects and creatures from 10 - 20 metres away.  They have been enjoying the abundance of tadpoles in the pond, using their same technique of roosting and swooping down when they spot prey then carrying it back to their original roost.  At certain times of the day in certain light the tadpoles must be an easy, and tasty target.  I was amused to see one of them on a vertical blade of our windmill checking out the view.  They usually sit on the body of the wind turbine but must have enjoyed the opportunity to get a bit higher.  Their other vantage points include the clothes line, the outlet pipe on the solar hot water heater and of course the branches of “that old puriri tree”.

A shag has been back roosting in “that old puriri tree” also  attracted by the abundant tadpole population.  This shag is quite wary of humans too and so it is not easy to see it on the pond.
We’ve been fascinated to have been visited by a banded rail.  This is surprising for a couple of reasons.  Firstly because banded rails are a particularly elusive bird and not often spotted but mainly because they prefer wetland areas and our house is way at the top of a big hill.  The rail has been spotted “bathing” in our pond as well as displaying nest making activity in our neighbour’s garden.  It has just been reported that a banded rail’s nest with 6 eggs has been discovered in one of our neighbourhood gardens so the rails have definitely abandoned their tradition wetland home.

A grey heron has been a very frequent visitor this year coming daily over the last couple of weeks.  Initially this bird was quite shy and disappeared at any sign of a human (often heading to roost in “that old puriri tree”).  Gradually it has become less and less skittish and I was able to photograph it with ease with the zoom on my camera happily feasting on tadpoles from the pond.

The poor old mallard/grey duck cross has continued her appalling attempts at “motherhood”.  I reported in the last newsletter that she had hatched 12 babies.  Unfortunately within a week they were all gone.  A couple of months later she hatched 13 babies that were so beautiful and busy on the pond but within days they were once again all gone. We suspect that the resident pukeko gang have done the job as there are no cats and no sign of mustelids in the numbers to kill so many in such a short amount of time.  I’m wondering if the mother has it in her to lay and hatch another batch.  Daddy duck isn’t much use as he conveniently disappears once the eggs are all laid.

Remarkably kereru still come to eat the few berries that “that old puriri tree” manages to produce.  I often wonder if it is because they are particularly tasty berries or if there isn’t much other food around because it must take a certain amount of extra effort to get from the real bush to our little remnant in the middle of abandoned no where.  It does however illustrate the value of any fruit producing native trees to kereru and also the value of having pockets of trees that create a link giving the kereru and other birds a safe place to rest when traveling from one lot of bush to another.

Now an update on the resident bird life in our valley and around our cluster of houses at the Eco-Village: the pheasants have raised a clutch of young already, brown quail are running around in a group but I haven’t seen any babies yet.  Peacocks “meow” on the fence posts on the ridge line day and night, shining cuckoo are singing though I never seem to be able to spot them, the swallows in the wood shed have fledged already and are practising their aerobatics over the pond.  The tui and fantail are always busy and the warblers and sky larks are always singing.  I’ve still got my eyes constantly wide open to spot something new and special.  Perhaps a kaka or long tailed cuckoo?