![]() This slate-gray bird with sky-blue wattles on a black-masked face has such a melodious song that some people call it the organbird. This small reward makes daily check-ups on the endangered bird easier. Glencoe, like the other members of his species on the island, doesn't need the food, but he comes running to Barbara's voice (which he does for no one else). "Aroha? Glencoe?" I find Ray and Barbara Walter, New Zealand Department of Conservation rangers and guardian angels of Tiritiri Matangi Scientific Reserve, tossing a few grains of poultry feed to Glencoe, a hulking, 6.5- pound pedestrian bird with deep blue and green feathers and a bright red, adzlike beak. ![]() With the takahe's comes another voice, a woman's - high and clear, sounding anxious. It's a takahe, an extraordinary, huge flightless gallinule long believed to be extinct until rediscovered in a remote mountain range 50 years ago. Just then, another bird voice rings out, loud and high-pitched this time, not melodious at all. The long notes waft gently through the canopy, haunting but also deeply mournful, as if expressing all of the troubles that have befallen New Zealand's bird life through the centuries.ĭizzy with sound, I walk slowly back up the track as the first golden sun rays sweep across the island and the decibels slowly fade. It now is also singing across the valley, its call so melodious, yet deep, that the species has an alternate name - organbird. Its cousin, the stunning kokako, is slate gray with sky-blue wattles decorating a black-masked face. An energetic ground-foraging bird, charcoal black with a bright rusty "saddle" across its back and delicate pinkish-red fleshy flaps adorning the base of its stiletto beak, it is one of New Zealand's ancient lineages of endangered wattlebirds. Strident, assertive saddlebacks begin argumentative vocal duels, their staccato "Yak-yak-yak-yak" in ever longer and louder volleys. With the sunrise imminent, more new voices join in. One hundred, two hundred birds perhaps, each following its own, unbroken steady rhythm: waves of music rising and falling, pulsating across the valley. "Ping!-ping!-ping!-ping?" or "so-mi-so-do?" on the music scale. Each bird's voice is but four limpid notes, delivered in slow, syncopated cadence, rising to a bell-like question mark. Its delectably sweet melody - clear and pure, urgent yet unstinting - goes on and on and on, not even pausing for breath, it seems.īut the bellbirds take the prize. Gray, chubby, long-legged and big-eyed, it spends most of its time on the forest floor. Then comes the New Zealand robin, one of the least showy species on the island's bird list. Photograph courtesy of Tui De Roy Audio courtesy of Ana and Norval Williamson of KMP Music (To hear the sound, you need RealPlayer" which can be downloaded for free from ) ![]() This energetic, ground-foraging bird is one of New Zealand's ancient lineages of endangered wattlebirds. Triple notes ring out arrogantly, like three big drops of water dripping loudly into a quiet pool, interspersed with delicate twitters so high-pitched I can barely pick them up. Apace with the brightening daylight, every one chimes in a few minutes after the last.įirst there's the tui, a grackle-size bird with blue-black and purple hues, filamentous white feathers woven through its nape and a white, tufty throat pompon worn like a bow tie. Tiri is a living illustration of what New Zealand once was, long before humankind arrived, and what it could be again if this vision were expanded countrywide.īut for the moment, down in the bush-clad valley where twilight lingers, I close my eyes and immerse myself in the sea of sound, picturing each musician still unseen in the thickets. The story of this little island stands out as an example of the miracles that can be accomplished when people join hands to achieve a common dream. It is sheer bird magic, made all the more incredible because 20 years ago it simply did not exist here on this tiny speck of land, a mere 550 acres known for short as Tiri. Their ethereal rhythms rise and fall not unlike those of a classical violin concerto. Fuzzy-tongued nectar lovers, ancient wattle birds and forest-floor insect eaters all vie with each other to greet the new day. But as I head down into the forested valley, I am at once enveloped in the most wondrous, soul-lifting wild bird chorus I have ever heard.Īs if directed by an unseen conductor presiding over an island-wide orchestra, the island's entire population of native New Zealand songbirds erupts in full harmony. Across the calm Hauraki Gulf, glittering night lights of New Zealand's largest city, Auckland, remind me that the hubbub of civilization is only 15 miles distant. THE FIRST HINT of dawn barely tints the summer sky when I slip out of the old bunkhouse on Tiritiri Matangi Island. How thousands of volunteers transformed a degraded New Zealand island into a pulsing wildlife wonderland
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