“That Old Puriri Tree”  - September 2005 - February 2006

Incase you have been fooled in to thinking I spend all my time watching birds I want to assure you that in fact I spend almost no time specifically bird watching.  Our little house has large windows facing North, East and West with expansive views in all directions.  Also we spend a lot of time outdoors in the garden and orchard and wandering back and forth past the pond.  So while I am doing the dishes or cooking in the kitchen I can watch birds if they happen to go by or while sitting at the computer or eating on the deck.  For example the other day as I was typing at the computer I turned my head to the right and there across the gully in the long grass were two mother pheasants and six babies.  It was particularly memorable because there were two adult females.  I have known for a long time that pukekos hatch and raise their babies communally but didn’t know this about pheasants.

We noticed a couple of Tuis doing strange things in and around “That Old Puriri Tree” some time early in December 2005.  One of them seemed to spend a lot of time singing and flittering about like it was constantly on a caffeine high or was hyperactive from too much food colouring!  I particularly noticed one day when this Tui chased away some Mynas that came to roost in the Puriri and then noticed even more a few days later when the pair of Tuis chased away a magpie!  I guess I was a bit slow off the mark but when I finally started paying real attention I realised that one Tui was going in and out of the same place on the south side of the Taraire which is next to “That Old Puriri Tree” and only about 15 metres from the edge of our deck.  I got the binoculars out as it was hard to see through the leaves and low and behold there was a large “twiggy” nest with a beak sticking out.  This was an exciting discovery for us all and we watched with interest over the next week or two.  On New Years day I saw a  little black bundle of feathers hopping about in the kikuyu underneath the Taraire  - it was the baby Tui making its first adventures out of the nest.  I even managed to video the mother feeding the baby on the ground.  I was quite anxious about that little guy and was glad there weren’t any cats around because it was only managing little hops into the air and back onto the ground.  It seems though that it made it back into the tree for the night and was there for another day and since then we haven’t seen it.

The banded rails have been as elusive as ever and I didn’t even see the babies until they were well and truly fledged.  We did some weed clearing and seemed to disturb their “playing” area - one adult did some quite sustained “displaying” and so we decided to stay away from that area with the mower incase there was a nest hidden deep in the kikuyu.  One time there were four of them wandering around in the just mowed grass.  In February there is regularly one hanging around the pond, which is sadly very low on water.  This rail is a bit skitish and jumps and flies off at the slightest disturbance.

It seems that a pair of kereru have nested in the Puriri just across our little gully as there is a lot of tooing and froing and a lot of territorial “displaying” going on.  It is exciting to think that these birds a nesting in these little isolated patches of 3 or 4 old trees.  I imagine it is because there is now plenty of food for them close by in all the revegetation plantings.

Mama brown quail had a batch of babies in December.  Unfortunately three of them got their heads tangled in the bird netting that was covering the strawberries.  One died but I managed to rescue the other two.  They are the tiniest little balls of fluff.  The reason I noticed that they were there was because poor old mama was calling for them from the bushes and they would call back but couldn’t manage to make their way back to mum so the calling just kept on going on and on.

A waxeye found its way into our house yesterday and just could not get out.  It managed to clear out a lot of cobwebs flying back and forth between the rafters.  Once it had left a few very purple “presents” on some of our good stuff I decided to set about trying to catch it with a butterfly net.  Fortunately I managed to catch it quite quickly and was able to set it free.

A neighbour showed us a pheasant nest deep in the kikuyu in his garden in December and one day I saw a great parade of eight or nine babies wandering through.  I am hoping that they have made there home in some one else’s garden as they often get a taste for various kinds of fruit.

The grey duck mama lost her first batch of around 13 babies and was well on the way to losing her second lot of 12.  However finally after... is it six tries?... she managed to keep two of them alive.  Once they got past that first couple of weeks there was no stopping them and she lead them about from house to house and pond to pond in the eco-village and they grew big and fat really fast!  They spent a lot of time on our pond but once they learned to fly we haven’t seen them since - ungrateful lot!  (One legged dad disappeared a lot earlier).
One day during January I heard a “honk honk’ and “squark squark” coming from the gully.  On investigating it was quite a sight to see a large male peacock (tail and all) being chased around in circles by a pukeko.  The carrying on only lasted a minute or so and then the peacock lumbered off.  Apparently the peacock had gone too close to some new “puke” babies and the pukeko was telling him all about it.  The pukekos have had a good season and are on their second round of babies around the different extended families in the valley.  The peacocks must have faired well at the neighbours because we daily see a procession of seven males, in all their finery minus the long tails, strolling through the fence into our place and they are forever moving closer and closer to our garden.  Apparently they enjoy climbing trees and eating fruit so we’ll be on the lookout for them too.

With a recent report of a Saddleback sighting in Onetangi I am on the look out for that elusive “special” bird sighting whether it be saddleback, bellbird or kaka - who knows?   However I can hardly complain because the variety of birdlife already here is just mind boggling.


“That Old Puriri Tree”
 April 2006

In some ways this time of year is fairly quiet on the bird life front on “that old Puriri Tree”.  A lot of the birds seem to have flocked together and disappeared.

The band (at least 3 of the 7) of male peacocks from next door seem to have moved in permanently much to our annoyance.  Their first destructive task was to eat all the olives off our poorly producing trees.  We are wondering what they will “tuck into” next.  I noticed with amazement one evening, amidst a great deal of flapping noise, that they fly up into one of the trees across the gully each night to roost.  What a sight to see these big birds with long tails etc flying into a puriri tree and then climbing up higher and higher to find a safe and comfortable roost for the night.  New words to that perennial favourite Christmas song come to mind “and a peacock in a puriri tree”!  Once in the dead of night one of these peacocks started a chorus of the distinctive peacock “honking” that carried on for quite a number of minutes.  I am still wondering what on earth it was that disturbed him from his slumber and worried him enough to send out this “distress” signal - perhaps a feral cat trying out its luck.

We were visited by a group of 8 kereru one morning and they flew back and forth across the gully between the puriri trees for 30 minutes or so.  I managed to get one good picture of four of them sitting in “that old puriri tree”.  What a sight these magnificent birds are when they congregate together.

The other day I watched two fantails very valiantly chasing a monarch butterfly around and around.  They disappeared from sight before I observed whether the butterfly got away.  There is still at least one banded rail hanging around our pond - though there are probably more but they really try not to be seen.  After the last lots of rain the pond is once more attractive to them and other birds.  The brown quail seem to have banded together for the winter and a group of seven or so daily wander past our place.

A fantail turned up in our house one warm afternoon last week.  It seemed perfectly happy flying around and clearing out the cob webs in the rafters like last time.  However this time I noticed that he was actually eating “things” as he went.  Just when we were worried that it couldn’t get out it decided it had had its fill and flew back out the open french door.  A couple of days later another one flew into the unfinished end of our garage and flew around doing the same thing.  I came back an hour or two later and it was still at it - cleaning up the cobwebs.

A large white sulfur-crested cockatoo has taken up residence in the valley.  These are amazing big birds that make an incredibly raucous call that echoes throughout the valley and has a strangely erratic flight pattern.

The pukekos continue to be a menace.  Four or five have taken up fairly permanent residence in our garden eating all the green tomatoes.  We spend all day chasing them out of the garden and try to make sure that they fly away down one of the gullies but within a matter of minutes they are tentatively sneaking their way back into the garden again.  They are probably quite enjoying the game - we aren’t!!!!!.



“That Old Puriri Tree”  - December 2006
 by Simon Griffiths

One day early in the Spring I heard the mother duck going "quack quack" and looked outside to see a pukeko flying with a duckling dangling from its beak.  The puk landed and I ran at it clapping my hands and it flew off fortunately dropping the duckling which I rescued from the kikuyu and put back on the pond.  Anyway that convinces me that the ducklings are being taken systematically by the puks. The first batch of 12 babies was all gone within a week.  The mother hatched out some more in November - by the time I saw them there were only 3 and then a few days later there were 2 and then none.  She is hanging around daily on the pond - I wonder if she will have a third go?

I was doing some bush crashing on a very overcast day in one of our bush gullies hunting out invasive weeds and disturbed a Ruru (Morepork).  It flew onto a branch quite nearby and I pulled out my camera and took a number of photos.  I tried without the flash but it was too dark and I couldn’t hold the camera still enough so I had to take flash pictures with the resulting “redeye” effect (which I have since removed with computer software - the wonders of modern technology!)  Anyway zoom lenses are wonderful things - the pictures were much clearer than what I could see in person.  The Ruru just sat there, probably quite annoyed about being disturb,  I turned to put the camera away - turned back and it was gone.

A shag was sitting in the top of the Puriri tree today - I haven’t seen one there for a while.  Perhaps it is because the frog numbers seem to be down.  The White Faced Heron hasn’t been around much either.

 The Tuis are back in the Taraire tree beside “that Old Puriri Tree” aggressively chasing off any other birds that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The female (apparently only the female builds the nest!!) is definitely displaying nest building behaviour though she is building on the other side of the Taraire tree this year.  With an incubation of 14 days and then 21 days to fledge they are going to be slightly later than last year.  Four Kereru (Wood Pigeon) came and sat in the Puriri the other day checking out the berries and the Tui spent quite a lot of time and effort trying to persuade them to move along.  They were suitably non-plused by the Tui’s efforts and just sat there for as long as they felt like it!!

Within an hour of depositing a water tank by our house a pair of Swallows were flying in and out of the hole in the top to check if it was a good place for a nest.  They were incredibly interested in this potential nest site.  Their interest has continued now for four days but there is no sign that they are going to actually start building there.

There seems to be an abundance of Pheasants this years.  One night I was in the garden after dark and I could hear the strangest kind of “grunting” type of noise coming from underneath that Old Puriri.  Finally my curiosity got the better of me and I climbed down the bank a little only to disturb a pair of cock pheasants continuing on with a duel that I had seen else where earlier in the day -they took one look at me and took off noisily into the dusk sky.

The Banded Rails are their usual secretive selves.  They are enjoying the long grass as they can travel a lot further without being seen.  The other day one of them ended up right outside the kitchen window a couple of times obviously in search of insects.  Apparently they like small snails and beetles - I am hoping they are feasting on the destructive bronze beetles that are pervasive in our garden and orchard.

Somehow the other day I got in between a mamma Brown Quail and her 4 babies and the mum went one way and the babies went “peep peep peep” the other way.  It took a while for the family to reunite (it didn’t help that I was unsuccessfully trying to get a photo) and it was quite a sight to see these minute balls of fluff trying to make their way through the long grass and various other human obstacles that were in the way around the edge of our deck (mainly plant pots and trays).  I saw the family a couple of days later in the same place this time with 2 adults (Mum AND Dad I presume).  The babies a seriously small - a cotton ball on legs is quite an accurate description.

I saw a Kaka last week at our neighbours property at the top of the valley.  It was being chased away by a Tui and when I saw it it was quite high in the sky.  I am hoping that one day they will make it down to our place!
 
What a wonderful time of year to watch bird life at Awaawaroa.  I haven’t even mentioned the baby Geese, baby Pukekos, and various other fledgling birds that go by “squarking” to be fed.  The Kotare (Kingfishers) have been tirelessly flying back and forth all day long with food for their babies in the Taraire across the gully.  The baby Swallows have already fledged in the firewood tank.  The flock of Rosellas seems to get bigger every year and they have already eaten all the tiny apples off two apple trees.  I won’t even bother to mention how the Pukekos managed to pull up almost every kind of seedling I planted this spring and so now almost the whole garden is permanently netted!  Don’t you just love Pukekos!