Advertisement
Published: February 26th 2008
Edit Blog Post
little blue penguin (Eudyptula minor)
looking somewhat indignant at being woken up In the middle of the Wellington Harbour sits Somes Island, also known by its Maori name of Matiu. In former times it was used as a quarantine island, not just for lepers and other diseased immigrants but also for farm animals. Before the arrival of Europeans the island's strategic position in the harbour made it attractive to warring Maori. Today Somes is an island sanctuary for native wildlife. My main reason for wanting to visit was to try and find a Brothers Island tuatara. There are only two species of tuatara in the whole world. The common tuatara is found on islands in Cook Strait and on islands round the top of the North Island (and of course now also in Karori Sanctuary); the Brothers Island tuatara is only found on the Brothers Islands in Cook Strait. There are only a few hundred individuals of this latter species, but some have been introduced to Somes Island to try and spread them round a bit to reduce the chance of anything bad happening to them. There are also four species of skinks on the island, but the two I hadn't seen yet are both crepuscular and I left the island still not
having seen them. We did find a tuatara though, a nice big one sitting in the sun outside its burrow, taking in the seaside breeze.
When we first arrived on the island there was the requisite introduction by a DoC person and a bag-check to make sure no rats or ferrets had stowed away. Once that was done there was an invitation for anyone interested to stay for five or ten minutes for a quick talk on the island's animal life. Only about six people stayed, the others all rushed off to begin exploring. Robyn and I really only stayed so we could find out the best place to look for tuatara. But because we had all stayed and therefore proved our nature worth, we were told that although visitors to the island normally don't see penguins (because during the day they're all out at sea fishing, or down in their burrows) we would be rewarded for our awesomeness. And he lead us over to a penguin's nest-box and pulled out a moulting penguin. Hence the picture.
Because it was our last day in Wellington, after leaving Somes Island we drove north for two hours to get to
Brothers Island tuatara (Sphenodon guntheri) on Somes Island
he looks quite angry, but is actually just in the middle of a yawn. Aw bless! the National Wildlife Centre at Mt. Bruce in the Wairarapa. This place was set up in 1958 by what was then known as the Wildlife Service (now the Department of Conservation) to rear takahe. These had only just been rediscovered down in Fiordland and the Wildlife Service wanted to get their numbers up, so they enlisted the aid of local aviculturist Elwyn Welch and started up the rearing facility on his farm, using bantam hens to incubate takahe eggs. Later other species of rare birds were brought in for breeding, including five kakapo in 1961 although these all turned out to be males and only one survived more than a few months.
I'd been to Mt. Bruce before but it was the first time for Robyn. The first time I'd come here I thought it was fantastic because it gave me the chance of seeing kokako and stitchbird in the flesh for the first time, but this visit was a bit less exciting because we'd just been at Kapiti and Karori and seen most of the birds here in the wild. Mt. Bruce is primarily a breeding centre not a bird park so the number of species is low
(only seven on display) but it does only cost $10 so especially for people without the time or ability to find the birds in the wild then it is well worth the trip. There are lots of common native wild birds in the trees around the aviaries too, including kaka which have been reintroduced here via captive-bred birds and now number around 100. Every day there is a feeding of the wild kaka so that their population can be monitored. There are also about thirty reintroduced kokako although these aren't normally found in the aviary area (there is construction progressing right now to make a track through to where the kokako live, which will enable regular people to see them here), as well as nineteen brown kiwi. The two kiwi from my Aquarium are going to be released here later this year too.
The next day we set off to the airport. We had earlier noticed that one of the hubcaps from our rental car had mysteriously vanished and we were a little concerned about how much the fee for that might be. However Robyn remembered seeing one on a motorway overbridge the day before whilst on the way
to Days Bay to catch the Some's Island ferry, so with some selective parking and creative footwork we managed to obtain a new hubcap. Unfortunately it did not look anything like our other three hubcaps and it said Nissan in big letters across the middle. We contemplated whether the rental people would notice a Nissan hubcap on a Toyota wheel, and decided that they probably would, so it was returned it to the gutter from whence it came, to await someone of less discriminating tastes.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.196s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0975s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb