Park's takahe tenants taking to new home

Friday, 21 September 2018

Have to say, it's a real thrill spotting a takahe in the wild for the very first time.

Last week I accompanied DOC's seven-person biodiversity team from Takaka up on to the Gouland Downs in Kahurangi National Park.

It's been the grunt of this dedicated team over the past two years - cutting, baiting and rechecking nine torturous trap lines covering 8000 hectares of the Downs – that has laid the groundwork for release of 30 takahe from Burwood Takahe Centre into here back in autumn of this year.

Predators, namely stoats and rats, just had to be eliminated first, a move that also must also have good effect on resident populations of kiwi/roroa, kea, weka, whio and fernbird.

The takahe relocation up to Gouland, 18 birds on March 20, and another 12 birds on May 1, was a big step in the takahe breeding programme, the first wild population to be established on the mainland outside of their forever home in the Murchison mountains of Fiordland.

In many ways it could be considered a real change of trajectory for rare species conservation in this country.

These introduced birds will be monitored carefully, and no doubt there will be some lessons to be learnt. Each one of them carries a small backpack transmitter tied on with shoelace neatly threaded around the base of their wings. Disappearing is not an option for these flightless treasures, our largest rail.

As of the start of last year's breeding season (Oct 1, 2017), the national population of takahe was still only 345 birds, not that much different from when the 'extinct' species was dramatically rediscovered by Dr Geoffrey Orbell back in 1948. By 1980, they had declined to only 120 birds.

Interestingly the new birds in Kahurangi have not moved too far from their various release sites. Trampers arriving or staying at Gouland Downs Hut are now more often than not treated to the wondrous sight of no less than five takahe grazing on the lawn there.

Cheeky hut weka step aside, these new birds on the block reign dominant now.

The takahe's big bright red snipping beaks are so efficient, there has been no need for DOC rangers to even bring out their scrub bar at Gouland Downs Hut to tidy the place up anymore, the takahe do it for them to near bowling green standard.

What they do leave on the lawn though is endless amounts of cylindrical poo, an average takahe poops out around 7 to 9 metres of the highly fibrous stuff every day. The fresh stuff is green and moist, but it quickly becomes dry and crunchy, the colour of straw.

This poo fibre is nearly all made up of tussock, which makes up the majority of takahe diet. First it side-snips off a blade, then removes the outer sheave by holding it down with one foot and eating only the bottom centimetre or two of the inner core, essentially the nutritious part. All the rest is discarded.

Apart from poo, it's easy to spot takahe territory, discarded tussock blades are strewn everywhere. In places whole patches of tussock look half-devastated, and they've only been here a few months.

It almost made me wonder if a successful repopulation here will alter the downs forever, but I am assured the tussock can handle it because of the way the takahe side-leafs the plant rather than browsing it from above like ultra-damaging stock or deer would do. New Zealand's plants have evolved to support our endemic fauna.

After the biodiversity team go all their separate traplines to check and rebait their flash gas-operated resetting A24 trap lines, I accompany DOC Ranger Toni Hutton out to find some 'tarks'. She's been in and out all winter, and has a good handle on where the new birds all are. Every one of them has been given a name.

It's obvious they have been using the Heaphy Track to get around, just like stoats do, the reason there's long been a DOC 200 box trap every 100m along the section of track between Perry Saddle and a couple of kilometres past Saxon Hut.

Rumour is one of the new takahe 'got beat up a bit' by its bolshy mate and absconded to live near Mackay Hut, hopefully that experience won't put her off male birds forever. But apart from this exception the rest are not that far from the spots where they were liberated.

We go looking, and not far around the old rusty '7 mile' peg near Saxon Hut we come across some super fresh poo, moist and green. A pair must be nearby, skulking in the tussock. We stay perfectly still and listen up.

'You nearly always hear them before you see them,' says Toni quietly. Sure enough, our ears pick up a low and slow omph oomph, the sound they make when an intruder is near. 'There's one bird just over there, the other is across the track in the shrub. Just be quiet and still, they will resume their feeding in a minute or two.'

We soon begin to hear sharp staccato cracks as the one in the tussock closest to us begins snapping off tussock blades again which in the still mountain air is quite a sharp 'crack'.

The pair also began communicating again with a soft continuous coo-eet duet, just keeping in touch. Their voices are a bit weka-ish, but quite distinctly different. At night, the takahe's resonant metallic night cry of hu was described by Maori as being like the sound made by clanking two pieces of pounamu (greenstone) together.

Finally we see a flash of red beak, such a contrast amongst the lush straw-coloured tussock, then a more revealing swathe of blue and green feathers.

'It's coming out on to the track about now,' Toni tells me in a hushed voice. Sure enough, right on cue, the big ponderous bird steps out on to the Heaphy Track. Immediately the bird identifies itself by the colours of its green-yellow-white leg ring as a female called Hyde, partner to Tametame now obviously the other bird in the scrub. Hyde parades around in front of us awhile, fairly unconcerned about our presence, before jumping up the bank to join its mate.

We head on to Perry Saddle. At Gouland Downs hut, we come across the five resident takahe on the lawn there which promptly go bush and cannot be coaxed out again. A search with a transceiver picks up a few beeps pointing toward thick scrub, but best leave them to it.

Up here on the Downs the evidence of takahe snipping at every patch of tussock is obvious. Boot Pole Corner so far is the furthest extent of their range, And sure enough, just a 100m or so past here, we once again hear the soft co-eet of takahe, and drop our packs.

My ears are totally attuned to the 'tarks' now, and I swear there are three of them, all quietly communicating our presence. Our patience is rewarded once again and the lower one comes out to inspect us. Not for long mind you, but each sighting is a real treat.

Nesting will be the next milestone for this population. From October, the takahe will begin making their bower-like nest amidst big clumps of tussock. Then they will lay one or at best two dull cream-coloured eggs with brown and mauve patches. The chicks hatch out covered all in black down apart from a white patch on the fore edge of their wings.

Hopefully, all the predator traps that surround them will keep them protected, although the New Zealand falcon is a natural enemy that is something they may have to contend with.

There will be many people waiting with bated breath to see the outcome up here, including no doubt sponsors of the national takahe recovery programme; Fulton Hogan and NZ National Parks and Conservation Foundation with DOC as primary partners, Mitre 10 as supplier and Air NZ for the flying in of the birds and ongoing trapping. This includes 688 gas operated self-resetting traps (Good Nature A24s) and another 125 more conventional DOC 200 traps.

Up there in Kahurangi, I could not help but think how at home the new takahe look, and how obvious (to me anyway) that they will breed. Just the way all animals do when you put them into their ideal habitats.

How marvellous that will be for Heaphy Track trampers, to have a good chance of spotting a takahe. Of course most passersby will miss the opportunity, so focused upon loudly charging through to reach the next hut. But a few will hear and even spot a 'tark', and get a thrill at seeing one of our most iconic, and endangered birds. Not behind a fence or enclosure, but in the wild. How bloody brilliant is that.