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Published: November 18th 2008
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My Obsession
A wild Black Stilt, one of only 120 birds in the World!!! 18th September 2008
We broke camp early with just a cup of hot coffee inside us and a wiz in the wood.
Within half an hour we we’re in the one horse town called Twizel. This is where the Black Stilt program resides. Disaster struck us; we’re supposed to book a tour before 9am for a start at 9:30am. We call the Department of Conservation plus a couple of other number given to us and all had the same reply, call back at 10am, TO BLOODY LATE!!
We decided to try and find the place ourselves and blag it. We drove around for about an hour and nothing. I was beginning to panic; I didn’t want to miss this opportunity. I finally called in at a Salmon farm and was given directions by the English owner. I told her what had happened with my phone enquires and she just laughed and commented that “it was the typical Kiwi way”, great!!!
When we finally found the place all was quite. I fired up my laptop any emailed the D.O.C. to see if they could help. Just as I’d sent the message I attracted attention of the warden, a young
guy called Brian. He was very helpful and said “he’d have to clear it with the boss, but he didn’t see a problem with a private tour” I couldn’t stop smiling. I went back to the van to tell Pili and make a quick coffee. It was then I heard a typical call from the Stilt family of birds. Sure enough I look up and a wild Black Stilt was flying over the van calling just to let me know he’d seen us. WOW, this bird is one in no more than 120 individual birds on the planet; I also took several photos as he passed over. Even if I was refused the tour I was made up.
Ten minutes later Bryan returned and told us “no problem a guide was on the way to show us around”. I asked Brian if it was ok to interview him about the project as I would like to submit an article to BBC Wildlife Magazine. (The editor has asked me to keep her informed of any interesting projects I encounter on our travels, I think this definitely counts as ‘interesting’) Brian said that would be “wonderful as they need the publicity
to help with public awareness & funding grants”.
Another Brian, Brian Carpenter (an ex-pat of 30yrs, it’s a small community!) showed up within 15mins and took us into the compound, which was surrounded by electric fences. He took us down to an enclosure with a 17year old female and a 12 year old male were housed. The bird that had flown over my head was next to the enclosure, I think he had the ‘horn’; he must have a hard time scoring chicks in the wild.
Brian gave us a history of the project starting back in 1981 when just 23 birds were left. This was the only valley known in the World to have this species and they had been decimated by introduced predators, cats, dogs, stoats and the Australasian Harrier. These little birds had evolved without these predators and when they came across them just didn’t recognise the dangers. Sadly this is a very common story among indigenous island species across the planet. New Zealand has lost many species in the last few hundred years. Destruction of environments and predator introduction is the cause of 85% of all extinction happening today. A third of the World’s
animal species are on the endangered list, we’re in a lot of trouble!!
After a really nice, informed tour of the public access areas the guide Brian left us and Bryan the DOC resident researcher took over the tour. He’d gained special access authorization for us to go down into the nurseries. I felt sorry for our ex-pat guide, he’s never been allowed into this part of the compound.
Bryan found us some DOC wellies and we disinfected the soles to protect the nurseries from any outside contamination. We drove down a small path in the 4x4 and were escorted into the large hanger type nurseries. This was beyond my wildest dreams. In front of us, no more than 15 metres away was a male and female with a brood of three very healthy looking chicks. We were in to presence of the future of the entire species!! Bryan wanted me to get some really good photos and with my 135mm- 400mm lens this was not a problem. Of course I’m going to send Bryan a DVD of the photos & video because he told me that he has very little visual documentation of the birds, he’s usually
to busy caring for them and doesn’t have a decent camera. What a privilege, I probably now have one of the best archives of this unique project, on Earth!! I was told that access into this area is granted very rarely so not to disturb the birds. I will do my very best to get publicity for these guys, it would be a tragedy to loose such a beautiful species because of lack of awareness and funding.
We concluded the 3hr tour with Bryan being interviewed on camera in the car park, my camera microphone was struggling a little in the strong wind, but still I have a good half an hour in the bag.
Elated and with our sincere gratitude we said our goodbye and set of for the coast again and the Otago Peninsula. The famous Moeraki Boulders were our target.
We briefly stopped off at Oamaru on the way to investigate the set up for the Blue Penguin reserve but decided against it because it was set up for a tourist show, grand stand seats and stage lights, not the way I want to see wildlife!!
The strange & huge spherical boulders known
as The Moeraki Boulders scattered along the long wind swept beach were formed approx 65 million years ago at the end of the age of the dinosaurs. They were formed by a process similar to the process that creates oyster pearls. The scientific title for this is septarian concretions. They were formed on the ancient sea floor and now lay in the beach side cliffs which was once the mudstone sea floor but through eons of times has been uplifted to the present location. The boulders are released through natural erosion and then tumble onto the beach making a great photo opportunity for visiting tourists.
Pili and I being the typical visiting tourist posed for photos sat on the boulders against the afternoon sun. I tried to get a little closer when the water was retreating but got caught out on the waves return and ended up on my ass in the wet sand, PRATT! Of cause Pili got the photo, well nearly.
We left a little crest fallen and soggy and headed to a little place I’d spotted on the map called ‘Trotters Gorge’ which I thought might be somewhere to park over night. We had no
What a beauty
If you were a male Black Stilt you would wouldn't ya info in any of our guides, but it sounded nice and probably out of the wind.
After a 10 minutes drive and a winding, unsealed road we found a little car park at the opening to the forested gorge. Immediately I saw the rare Bellbird and New Zealand Pigeon flying around, the woods were also full of bird song, this’ll do for us.
I made us a meal and we crashed & crawled into our bed. To our horror we found that the van was teaming with buzzing sand flies and midges. The battle ground was set and war commenced. I don’t normally kill anything but these blighters were the declared enemy and we were taking no prisons. The roof of the van is now marked in about 100 places with the remains of these blood thirsty insects. Unfortunately a few did survive and they got revenge during the night, especially on Pili’s bum.
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