Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 112
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
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| Pipit - Kapiti Island |
We didn’t see a lot of the New Zealand pipit during our last visit to Kapiti Island in October. They look very like the European skylark but without the distinctive tuft on their heads. Nor do they rise into the air in spring and sing like that bird. But their numbers have been dramatically reduced by European settlement, and while you can usually find introduced skylarks in open areas in most parts of the country, these birds are very rare. They nest on the ground are very tame and predated by just about everything. They now cling to forest edges though we’ve seen them, surprisingly, way up in the alpine slopes of Ruapehu in National Park.
Like other native birds they lack an appreciation of the danger posed by mammals. There were three on the open flats in front of the Red House and they forayed down to fossick for food amongst the driftwood on the beach. They keep to themselves but we have seen them in groups of three or four and probably they had gone to ground in October and were nesting.
Another rare sighting was of this gecko and her youngster.
Mum
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| Youngster |
They have taken up residence in the Battery shed (power generated on the Island is through solar and hydro sources). The little one was quite oblivious to being spotted but the mother kept undercover. There is plentiful insect life in the shed so this was probably why she had set up house there. It is very difficult to spot them in the bush, unlike skinks and tuatara who come out into the sun on hot days. So it was a treat to find them, though a bit of a worry when we found the mother had crawled into the roller door, then came out fully exposed when we pulled it down. Fortunately she was unhurt and scampered back to cover.
The nights on the island can be spectacular, especially under a full moon, though it makes it harder when you are out spotting kiwis.
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| Looking across to the Kapiti Coast under a full moon |
We went out most nights but with little success, though they seemed luckier up at the northern end. Even there however, you usually only get a brief flash as they cross the track. Or you’ll spot a feathery rear-end gamboling away in the dark. On a previous trip we were much more fortunate as a rare little spotted kiwi came out in front of us. She got a real fright and bounced up as if on a spring in front of us before rollicking off down the track. They have a very distinctive rolling motion when they break into a gallop like that.
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| Little Spotted Kiwi (courtesy DoC) |
It is pure chance that the little spotted Kiwi has not joined so many of our native species in extinction. Five birds were transferred to the island in 1912. They were gone from the North Island by then and are now extinct on both islands. Kapiti is now being used as a farm, to reintroduce them back into other safe environments.
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| Keruru - Kapiti Island |
Finally here is a foto of a kereru that very nearly landed on our shoulder. You can see from the discolouring of her undercarriage that she’s been eating tawa berries, which were just ripening up. There’s plenty of food around and they’re really plump.
Susie Niews has been taken away by a Scottish lament this week the Skye Boat Song.
Speed bonnie boat like a bird on the wing
Onward the sailors cry.
Carry the lad that's born to be king
Over the sea to Skye
Our guess is that she’s been bingeing on Outlander and is this a good thing? Well that’s nobodies business but hers, but one clue might come from this piece of questionable doggerel regarding the Highland kilt and what lies beneath. It comes from no less a rubbernecker, than Jamie Boswell himself, who went up to have a look…
I saw you buying breeches for your bums
But with your breeches you were not so stout
As the bold highlanders who went without
Does this get you any closer to establishing where she’s from? Well, the setting is a northern idyll, but no, she hasn’t got that much of a brogue-burr to her tone. So keep trying…
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