Rare volcanic eruption on New Zealand's Tongariro National Park

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 82

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Te Maari crater Tongariro

Isn’t it odd how seeming misfortune can sometimes turn things round for the better!

Traveling down from Lake Taupo last week we were turned back at the main crossing point through what’s known as the Desert Road because of ice and snow. This rerouted us an extra 50 km around the other side of the mountain complex of Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu. This is the first National Park of NZ and gifted to the country by Tuwharetoa Iwi (Central North Island Maori tribe). It’s a world heritage site and you can see why from these photographs.

Ngauruhoe

Tongariro - steam from Te Maari  on left

Shrouded Ruapehu

It's just as transfixing travelling the long way and an area we know pretty well, through having worked up here on conservation issues. We worked with some of the old mountain guides, who were old enough to remember taking the Prince of Wales up here in a party in the 1920’s. They told of a condition you could fall into if you stayed up on the mountain too long. You’d get ‘Mountain Happy’ and find yourself measuring up visitors to see if they had the right moral qualities to be on the Mountain  and if they came up wanting you’d order them off. At which point you knew it was time to get back to town for a while. Maori perhaps, would understand this more than Pakeha.

To our great pleasure we found Tongariro alive and smoking (actually steaming). This film is of the Te Maari crater which erupted unexpectedly in November 2012. It caught everyone by surprise because it’s usually Ruapehu and Ngarauhoe that are on the go. It is still broiling away, though you can’t get near it of course (for safety reasons)  and we captured the video from a good 15 km’s away.

And then we were also treated to the rare sight of Taranaki sulking in the distance.

 

Taranaki

For anyone wishing to travel this route Ohakune is the ski resort that will get you up onto the Turoa ski field. A must stop here is the world famous ‘Chocolate Éclair Shop’. It’s been churning them out for fifty years and they could export them to New York City herself, and they would be rioting outside the bakery with you New Yorkers trying to get your hands on the very last one (Believe us!)

 

Ohakune Chocolate eclair

Track we were listening to while posting this – it had to be Peter Cape and Taumaranui. This town is about 50 kms away from this area (as the crow flies). It marks the start of the canoe journey down the Whanganui Awa (river). The river Maori hold a pilgrimage down the river ever year. The headwaters are up here on the plateau and much of the water got redirected into lake Taupo in a power scheme that came on track in the early 1970’s. It took 30 years of rigorous campaigning to restore the water levels back up to a level where the Awa could start to breathe again.

 

Typical Awa headwaters bush country 

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Stop Press on Kotare (New Zealand Kingfisher) - We have a pair

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 81

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

After all our careful observation, perseverance has finally paid off with the sighting of two kotare on the Wharemauku near the dune lake this morning. They were sitting together and saw us well before we located them, so took off and we couldn’t get a shot of them together but managed to follow their different flight paths to finally get the evidence. 

Female kotare near Wharemauku

Male kotare -near Wharemauku 

So we have a pair and this is the first time in four years that we have seen them together. Though perhaps they are responsible for the youngster at the other end of the creek. If so their nests can’t be close by because they’re usually quite visible as fledglings. They stick close to their mother as they learn how to harvest a meal off the local terrain. 

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Kotare - New Zealand Kingfisher update

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 80

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Kotare near dune lake over looking Wharemauku

As if to prove us wrong, less than a week after voicing our frustration about spotting kotare at the dune lake, this one came out of hiding in order to pose for us while trying to spot inanga in the wharemauku. This is around two kilometres upstream, from where we filmed our last post and we seem to be right in thinking we are dealing with two different birds. Here are photos of the two so see what you think.

Koatre near dune lake

Kotare at beach end of Wharemauku

We call them both ‘she’ but this is convention because we really don’t know their gender but more colour on their white fronts usually means a male. We think our first bird is the younger of the two. Perhaps she has just fledged which gives us hope that there is a nesting pair around here. (Someplace?).

They are very wary of humans and their dogs and take off almost immediately they spot you, though its noticeable that we are seeing a lot more risk taking from the wild birds at this time of year. Presumably this is because they are a lot hungrier than in summer. 

Kahu - Australasian harrier hawk

If you’re driving out in the country you’ll notice this with kahu (our Australasian hawk). They are not only out in the most atrocious weather this time of year (and this winter is shaping up to be pretty heinous); but swooping dangerously onto the roads while out looking for roadkill. They get so hungry that we have seen one try and pick up a pukeko at the dune lake.

On a lighter note the piwakawaka are back for the winter. This is our delightful little fantail, a pair of whom, were dithering around at the back of the airport. They are impossible to film because like all our little bush birds they have come out of the forest and so never keep still. Sometimes however, you just get lucky…

Piwakawaka at back of aairport 

Fanning!

Track we were listening to while posting this – we are plugging Hello Sailor and Blue Lady this week. Alive and still smokin’ despite losing Dave McArtney a couple of years ago. They go live at the Pumphouse in Auckland and a public bar full  of Kiwi musical legends with them. September 18 – so better get your tickets today…

Found myself a blue lady

To help me through the night

Me and my blue lady 

will make this chance alright (alright)

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Kotare – a New Zealand kingfisher in the Wharemauku

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 79

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

Kotare - NZ kingfisher

One of our most rarely sighted local native birds is the kotare or kingfisher. And this seems odd given the fact that this is former swamp forest country and remains honeycombed with drainage creeks. These are rich with marine life, despite the extensive urbanisation of the surrounding land.

We only seem to come across these feisty birds in late autumn and winter. We had high hopes for a breeding pair last year, when one seemed to take up residence at the back of the airport, but were left disappointed. The bird seems to have returned to the back of the airport again this year, though we have only caught rare glimpses of her. We were lucky to catch another however, further  down the Wharemauku, close to the coast. 

Kotare - NZ Kingfisher

The sighting of a kingfisher is supposed in itself, to be a lucky portent, but we’ll settle for the footage we managed to get of this one – diving into the creek and then grooming herself dry in the branches of a tree before settling into the sun to dry.

The New Zealand kotare is not only good-looking but a hardy soul who, like the North American  woodpecker, can drill holes into forest trees. There is one example  worth looking out for when visiting Otari-Wilton Bush in Wellington. The trunk is peppered with holes well above head height and curiously, the next generation of kotare come back to continue their parents excavation. It’s off the beaten track but their staff will be able to direct you there.  

 

 On the run - Royal Spoonbill on Wharewauku

This is the third native bird we have seen feeding in the Wharemauku since the big flood. The first was the black shag and then last Sunday we caught a royal spoonbill down in the Wharemauku opposite the dune lake. It was a dangerous place for such a large animal especially at a time when people are out with their dogs. And we had to move fast just managing to fire off this shot and a jerky film (filming on the run is not a good idea but needs must when the devil drives). Sadly this one was lame and possibly sick as well. It may have been lured down by hunger this time of the year.      

Track we were listening to while posting this   -I can’t feel my face-  The Weekend… It’s a really summery upbeat Michael Jacksonee song made for the Northern Hemisphere this time of year. Down here you need to make up for the chill by playing  it very loud.

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Midnight Collective - taking a stand against violence

Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 78

Actively supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds

One of our central principles is the maintenance of a code of non-violence. This involves as far as possible, not simply the avoidance of harming animals, but not venturing into their comfort zones, especially during nesting. This is possible through the development of telephoto lens technology. Yet we don’t use hides and stay visible all the time and its curious how you soon become a familiar figure even to the most nervy of animals who usually spot you well before you spot them. 

I've got my eye on you -spoonbills and stilt at the Raumati Beach Dune Lake

They still rate you as problematic, but you’re slipped down towards the other end of their threat list; below that is, dogs, cats, kahu, spur winged plover, and casual human visitors. And here’s an interesting fact – that birds are especially wary, we have noticed, of adolescent boys – of girls they don’t seem anywhere near so chary.

A top predator unmasked

It is difficult sometimes however, not to disturb these birds. When pied stilts were nesting on the dune lake the mates of the nesting bird (the males share the nesting duties)  would spot us on a nearby hill, half a kilometre away and  immediately get on the offensive; calling loudly (to summon help) and diving at us. They are very courageous and will organise in groups to take on a circling kahu. Yet their bluster can seem rather  counter productive because not only is an agitated stilt more charming than threatening, it gives away the fact that there is a nest nearby and it doesn’t take long from there to pinpoint it. Though its rather more difficult fortunately, to get to it because it is usually out in the centre of the lake.

Pied stilt pair preparing a nest -Raumati Beach dune lake

The life of animals can be pretty tooth and claw but these birds differ in one important respect from human beings because they don’t take pleasure in killing for the sake of killing. How this sets the human race apart can be measured now that we are into the duck shooting season. We have already mentioned how the grey teal –tete is a protected bird though 6 percent of its population is still shot during the season. So hunters aren’t taking any notice of their own regulations. Duck, teal, shoveller and paradise duck numbers fall dramatically during the season, and two years ago we lost around ten from a thriving colony of parera-cross birds. They haven’t regained these numbers since. 

And then of course our critically endangered parera can still be shot in season. Is there any other country in the world where you might kill a critically endangered animal with impunity and for pleasure? And then there are the damaged survivors.

Injured male paradise duck -putangitangir Wharemauku creek

This is a paradise duck male that came limping into the Wharemauku shortly after the opening of the season. It is being tended by its mate. The females are well known for their steadfast character but while her mate is surviving, after three weeks his condition hasn’t improved.

With mate 

How ironic that the extreme pleasure some New Zealanders get from killing animals is matched by the horror we feel when they are mistreated.

Track we were listening to while posting this Whanganui boy made good, Johnny Devlin, who sold 50,000 records between June and November 1958. He was 18 years old - the most gifted  singer  yet to come out of these antipodes. Take our word for it and go listen to Lawdy Miss Clawdy one more time.

Well, I give you all my money

Yeah, but you just won't treat me right

You like to ball every morning

Don't come home till late at night

He waka eke noa

Kia ora mai

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