Blue Ducks at Pegleg Creek

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Another short birdy trip out of Hokitika, this time for blue ducks, a pair of which had been seen recently on Pegleg Creek up the top of Arthur's Pass. Blue duck or whio (their Maori name, after the whistling call they make) are one of the few ducks specifically adapted for life in white-water rapids and, like most endemic birds of New Zealand, they are now endangered. There are a couple of spots in the North Island where you can still reliably turn up and see them, but in the South Island they are now mainly found in the mountains, driven from all their former haunts in lowland rivers by the predations of stoats and cats. And sadly it is mainly the females that get killed as they sit on their nests, so now there are a lot of bachelor males living lonely lives. Because they are endangered and hard to find they had always been one of my missing birds. I'd tried to find them before but no luck.

I stayed a couple of nights in the Arthur's Pass Village. Pegleg Creek is at the top of the pass, about 45 minutes walk up from the village. On the first afternoon I walked up via the Bridal Veil track. There weren't many birds in the forest and no ducks at the creek. When I got up the next morning, everything had turned white! Their first snow-fall of the winter! I went back up the Bridal Veil track, figuring even if I didn't find any blue ducks at least I'd have some pretty pictures of the snow-covered mountains. At the creek the cold was, frankly, deathly. I managed to hold out for just an hour before I decided I'd rather live than see a blue duck, and headed back lower down the mountain.

At around noon when the sun had got up a bit higher I returned to Pegleg Creek. There wasn't any sun up there though because of the shadows of the surrounding peaks so I sat under the bridge, the only place free of snow, and waited. After two hours or so, at that stage where you sort of forget why you're there and your mind starts wandering instead of staying on the job, a high whistle jolted me from my reverie and a pair of blue ducks shot down from the higher reaches of the creek, zoomed past me under the bridge, and landed down at the mouth of the creek where it entered the Otira River. Success! I scrambled after them along the creek edge until I was on the stony beach of the Otira. The ducks gave some half-hearted alarm calls and then decided I wasn't up to the task of chasing and eating them, so ignored me.

They really are fantastic ducks, easily one of the nicest species of waterfowl around even though they're not as colourful as some. And they can only be seen in New Zealand. Even in the zoo world there is only one left overseas, an old male called Jerry at Arundel in the UK. There were three blue ducks there, two males called Ben and Jerry, and a female called Cherry. Jerry didn't like Cherry though, he liked Ben so no baby blue ducks were hatched from the trio. Cherry died in 2009, and Ben followed in 2011. Now Jerry is paired up with a call duck (a big white domestic breed) because he was pining being alone.

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Photos

Blue Ducks (Hymenolaimus malacorhynchos)
female on left, male on right

Blue Duck (Hymenolaimus malacorhynchos)
the female one, sitting alone while the male went swimming

Blue Duck (Hymenolaimus malacorhynchos)
the male one, showing how well they blend in amongst the river rocks!

Comments

[Peter Ericsson]

memories
Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful story. Great moments of joy for you. I really liked that area and remember sitting in my jacuzzi sipping wine while watching my cold breath under the starry night........