Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 74
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
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| Pukeko matriarch with chicks at dune lake |
Pukeko sit up near the top of the food
chain in these parts and are not one of our favourite birds because they
predate the young of rarer birds, including pied stilt. Curiously we have only seen this
happening during the breeding season when they were raising their own chicks and
they make a point of feeding any luckless ducklings to their own young. Last
winter however, when ducklings started coming out on the lake in June they
appeared to take little interest in them (though the mother ducks weren’t
taking any chances and hived the youngsters off into the blackberry anyway).
In feeding their young, there is an
established pecking order. Close neighbours occasionally lob crusts of bread
over the rear fence and one young bird picked up one then marched it all the
way round the dune lake to pass to a second bird who then passed it to the
matriarch. She appears to take charge of the brood which is seldom out of her sight
in the first couple of weeks. There is a very strong community maternal
instinct in all these birds with the females laying their eggs in a shared
nest.
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| Pukeko feeding young |
And then we have seen one of the older
females showing a youngster how to feed one of the chicks. She pulled out a
stem of reed from the lake, then chipped the white tip into manageable size to
pass to the youngster to pass to the chick. It indicates that there is quite a
lot of learned behaviour occurs in building pukeko relationships. Then some
ritual bill tapping. Two adults will begin a fast reciprocal tap-tapping against
each others beak. You may theorise that this serves to foster closer family
relations or that it emerges from close family relations; but it just looks
like fun.
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| Pukeko tending sick youngster |
And this group bonding can happen on a
larger scale. Two years ago, two different broods were bringing up youngsters
at either end of the lake but within a week they had merged into one and were
all involved in fostering the youngsters. This indicates perhaps, that these
birds have a wider social connectivity than is immediately obvious.
Ordinarily there are around five to seven
pukeko settled around the lake. At this time of year however they all seem to
come together, and begin grazing in the more open spaces along the wharemauku
creek and beyond. We counted around 25 a couple of days ago amicably feeding as
a large group in one of the paddocks (though couldn’t get a decent photo of
them). This togetherness seems to go on for around six weeks, until they begin
splitting up once again, into four or five smaller cadres.
Pukeko are thought to be recent arrivals
from Australia. They flew here but have already begun to lose this ability. In
this they are following the path of the takahe – with whom they share a common
ancestor – though the takahe are NZ birds and noweher near as aggressive as the
Australian import.
Takahe do not have the ability to protect themselves against
introduced carnivores (including humans) and behave like big bossy hens. This
is very endearing but they are wild animals and very endangered. They were
rediscovered in 1948 and slowly recovering in numbers having been spread through New Zealand
to protect the overall population from any outbreaks of deadly avian diseases.
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| Spot the difference - Takahe adult Mana island |
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| Takahe pair with fledgling - Mana Island |
These photographs were taken on Mana Island on the West Coast near Wellington where the takahe are thriving. In 1948 when rediscovered there were over 400 birds though this dropped to 180 in the 1980's as a result of competition from deer in the Fiordland National Park. It has taken 15 years of intensive management to move this from 200 in 2000, to 260+ today. A viable population is thought to be 500 plus.
Track we were listening to while posting this Clarence 'Frogman' Henry.
I don't know why I love you but I do.
I don't know why I love you but I do.
I don't know why I cry so but I do.
I only know I 'm lonely and that I want you only.
I don't know why I love you but I do.
We’ve been watching reruns of Treme and it shows...
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