TWO WORK WEEKS IN WELLINGTON, NZ
From 28 February to 12 March an invitation from the Institute of Water and
Atmosphere Research in Wellington (NIWA) , New Zealand, to come and assist them
with the reorganization of their extensive amphipod collections, gave me a
chance to see a little of that far-away country, almost at the opposite end of
the globe from Northern Norway. I left Tromsø in a snow storm on the Friday
morning 26 february, and arrived c 40 hours later in Wellington, as yet without
my luggage (which arrived one day later). The taxi to my motel in town, along
the waterfront, yielded me i.a. the only heron of the entire trip, a Reef Heron.
Wellington is a beautiful, lively and cosmopolitan town of ca 1/2 million
inhabitants. Even flora and fauna are cosmopolitan, as I had little trouble to
identify most of the roadside plants (European) , while the land birds along my
route to NIWA, although abundant, were far from diverse: lots of House
Sparrows, European Starlings, and feral pigeons, with now and then a European
Blackbird, or the insistent peeps of Silvereyes.
The walk to NIWA, along the waterfront, took ca an hour, and of course yielded
more
birds: lots of gulls, the smaller dapper Red-billed Gulls, that sound exactly
like our Black-headed Gulls, and the larger dark-mantled Kelp Gulls (here
called Dominican gulls) with their very dark immatures, that now and then
almost look like skuas. On some very windy days (and of those there are galore
in ' the Windy City' Wellington), also small flocks of White-fronted Terns,
with their dagger-like black bills, sought lee along the coast, while on the
calmer days, pairs of black Variable Oystercatchers (I never saw a single pied
one here) worked over the offshore boulders for mussels Mytilus edulis. Another
common bird on these boulders was the Little Cormorant, a very characteristic
species with its short beak. There were also other cormorants, though, although
those usually did not venture as close to the shore for resting: the elegant
Little Black Cormorant with its slender bill, the beautiful Spotted Shag, even
though already in eclipse plumage, and a few times also the Black Cormorant,
the very same species that I had seen in the harbour in Tromsoe the day before
I left--as well as in freshwater in Odijk the day after I returned to Holland!
(I have always wondered how it can be that a very few bird species have
managed to obtain an almost world-wide distribution, while others have
apparently split up in many regional species. The Black Cormorant is only one
example: others are the Black-crowned Night Heron, the Short-eared Owl and the
Peregrine Falcon. What has made just these species so successful globetrotters?)
No seaducks here, although in a few quiet bights Mallards loaf. And on most
days no real primary seabirds either. Just on one of the many windy days there
weré shearwaters out on the 'harbour': as far as I could make out mainly
Fluttering Shearwaters, but with at least one dark and larger Sooty Shearwater
among them.
Of course I am aware of the fact that this picture is greatly influenced by the
area of town I walked through, and I am sure that e.g. a walk through the city
parks would have yielded several more bird species: I saw Blackbirds galore
there during a taxi ride through town, as well as European Chaffinches flying
up from the underbrush here and there. In the weekend we had a chance to visit
a few areas outside town, on the Kapiti coast. On the way, at Porirua, an
stuarine setting showed tens of Black Swans, together with lots of Mallards
(and probably some other ducks) and Coots (another one of those globetrotters),
as well as the always conspicuous and raucous Masked Plovers (here Spur-winger
Plovers), a recent arrival from Australia that has spread very rapidly
throughout New Zealand.
Here and there pairs of Paradise Shelducks, the white-headed females extra
conspicuous, kept together, and in the Waikanae estuary we also found a single
Royal Spoonbill, several Kingfishers, and in the runoff to sea, several fishing
Pied Cormorants. In the paddocks Australian Magpies caroled, and Chaffinches
were everywhere, and in the small lakes there were regularly diving NZ Scaups.
Later that day a dune walk at Paekakariki added many more European birds: large
flocks of Blackbirds and Starlings, as well as of Chaffinches and European
Goldfinches, smaller flocks of European Redpolls in the open dunes, and single
birds of both European Greenfinch and Yellowhammer.What a relief then to come
across a quartering Australasian harrier over the dunes: at last a real NZ
bird!! The only other NZ birds I saw that day were a few Pukekos (Prurple
Swamphens) in the rough and wet pasture areas we drove through, regular
Silvereyes, and a single Grey Warbler in a palm grove.
New Zealand, being a country practically without any mammals at all (A few bats
had found their way here) was singularly unprepared when first the Maoris
brought their dogs, as well as the Kiore or polynesian rat, and still less
when the pakeha or white man flooded the country with a whole suite of mammals,
amongst them fiery egg predators like several rats, bloodthirsty predators like
stoats and ferrets, and a fierce competitor for food and nesting cavities like
the Australian Possum. Consequently, the endemic birds decreased rapidly, and
many species now are hardly or not at all found anymore on the mainland
islands. To get any idea of what New Zealand may have looked like earlier, one
has to go and visit those small islands where the New Zealanders, the world's
foremost experts in this business, have succeeded in removing the various
predators and competitors.
Fortunately I did get such a chance, and had a day both on Kapiti island and in
the Karori Wildlife Area. More about that in the second part of this essay.
I am very grateful to NIWA for inviting me to Wellington, and especially to my
host there, collection manager Anne-Nina Loerz, for all her help and
hospitality during my stay.
Wim Vader, Tromsø Museum
9037 Tromsø, Norway
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