New Zealand
PLEASE SIR, CAN I HAVE SOME MOA? A month in New Zealand
Fulfilling a long delayed trip, we finally make it to New Zealand.
Most people, photographers and bird-watchers alike, have a hot-list of places they want to go; New Zealand has been at the top of ours for nearly a decade. Quite why it took us this long to go is something of a mystery, for every time we talked about booking flights, off we went somewhere else; Canada, Australia or California. Something always held us back, but we didn’t know what; even as we packed our gear, we still felt some reluctance; with so much of China still to explore, why travel so far? The reasons seemed plain enough, legendary landscapes, friendly people and some interesting endemic birdlife, and as a foreigner living in China, the chance to savor some of those “old-country” luxuries, like fish and chips!
So what exactly did I know of the country before we set off? New Zealand is a long way from anywhere; even for us in the Far East it would be an 11-hour flight from Hong Kong to Auckland. Bluff on South Island is nearly 19000 kilometers from London, which, give or take a short piece of string, is half way around the World, confirmed by the time zone GMT +12 hours.
Looking through the Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand it was evident a lot of the avifauna was introduced, either from Europe or Australia, with the countries endemic land birds mostly confined to predator-free offshore islands; this was clearly a country with some environmental skeletons in its closet. Still, the possibilities of seeing Black Stilt, Wrybill and a plethora of seabirds including numerous Albatross seemed to justify the birding interest.
With a landmass roughly the size of Italy and only 4.3 million people, one expects peace and quiet at every turn, and a quick Google search confirming the myth that there are more sheep than people; over ten times more.
Despite its tiny population, the country hasn’t managed to slip under the world radar; Sir Edmond Hillary’s first ascent of Mt Everest earned him a spot on the $5 bill and Peter Jackson showed the rest of the world how to make movies with his Lord of the Rings trilogy, defining overseas travelers pre-conceptions about the New Zealand landscape.
Armed with these facts we arrive in Auckland on a sunny morning in early February 2009 to be greeted by a deserted immigration hall and our first contact with the countries Bio-Police, entrusted to keep foreign and unwelcome biomaterial out of New Zealand. Thankfully the ten packets of Chinese emergency rations biscuits I had brought didn’t pose a threat!
Fearing peak season crowds we had pre-booked our first 10 days accommodation and our ferry crossing, and were heading south at a good pace, but leisurely enough for me to start formulating my first impressions of the landscape. Superficially it’s very familiar to anyone coming in from Europe, only the trees and shrubs adding an air of the exotic. Birds seemed abundant, but mostly introduced; Common Mynas from South East Asia, Blackbirds, Song Thrushes and Starlings from the UK. However, a family of Pukeko, a massive marsh bird akin to a Moorhen on steroids, strutted their stuff by the roadside. By the time we reached Taupo it was beginning to feel like driving through a well-manicured park, complimented by a raft of New Zealand Scaup, the ducks lounging in the lake’s shallows only yards from the weekend swimmers.
Delving into the Islands history helps put this in perspective:
New Zealand is old and has been isolated from other landmasses for a very long time, floating around in the South Pacific punctured by numerous volcanoes, tortured by tectonics and shaped by glaciers. As such, there were no native land mammals and birds dominated the ecosystem. Moa were huge, wingless birds up to 3.7m tall and weighed 230kg and were the dominant herbivore. Their only natural predator was the Haast Eagle, a giant of a bird with a 3m wingspan and 7.5cm claws. As with other islands, many flightless birds existed, Kiwis and Penguins are well known, but other birds usually associated with flight, like Wrens and even Ducks, gave up their wings for a safe and easy life on the ground.
Lush, dense forests covered the lowlands, growing profusely in the humid, rain-soaked climate; higher up, Alpine pastures carpeted in Red Tussock Grass. The Islands epitomized wilderness.
Sadly, for the wildlife that is, around 5200 years ago in modern-day Taiwan, people set out in search of new lands. They ultimately populated the Pacific and between 800-1300AD successive waves of settlers reached New Zealand from Polynesia. Their arrival was a death knoll for the native birds, plump and fearless, they were slaughtered, the last Moa killed around 1400AD.
When, in 1769, a British Naval officer Captain James Cook re-discovered the islands, a more profound and long-lasting settlement began. Their followed a turbulent century, during which time Maori culture was destabilized, conflicts with increasing numbers of Europeans led to the New Zealand Land Wars, and in February 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed and British Sovereignty finalized.
By this time, back in Europe, land use and societies were already well established and clearly defined; economics and the pursuit of wealth was King. By 1792 most of the Highlands of Scotland had been deforested for agriculture and another wave of mass emigration saw the land lonely and remote, silent but for the bleat of sheep.
The British saw no reason to treat their newfound colony any different and began systematically to plunder the timber and turn the land over to the new herbivores. With them they brought other perils more deadly than the axe; cats, dogs, weasels, stoats and rats, which between them wiped out over 45% of New Zealand’s endemic birdlife. The only European ever to see the flightless Stephens Island Wren for example, was the lighthouse keeper in 1894. He reported his cat had brought him 17 specimens, and the bird was discovered and became extinct within a year.
The Modern Era:
In 1948 the Takahe, another large, flightless endemic bird was rediscovered in the upper reaches of a remote valley in Fjordland, the species was thought to have become extinct in 1898. New Zealand now focuses its attentions on the conservation of its remaining endemics, reforesting predator-free offshore islands and slowly the tide is turning, but on the two main islands, all but a few of the endemic birds are still considered critically endangered.
As we drove across the volcanic plateau, with the caldera of Mt Ruapehu on our right in the gleaming sunshine, all these thoughts were going through my head. For the next two weeks as we journeyed down the east coast of South Island, again and again I was noticing land use rather than landscape, finally concluding that “under the skin” the topography is wonderful.
As always, these views are purely subjective and have to be read within the context of our perspective. This is not a criticism of New Zealand, but simply my observation of the conflict between economics and conservation. I wrote at length in my article on the rice terraces of Yunnan about the aesthetics of manmade landscapes, some considered spectacular and breathtaking, while others are ugly and devoid of life. New Zealand is very easy on the eye, the roads quiet and well maintained, the European influence apparent, but away from the Southern Alps and the vast forests of the southwest, the molars of sheep and cattle crop the land.
For us, living in the highlands of South West China, far from the sea, it was the ocean that held the greatest allure. Of our 28 nights in the country, all but seven were on the coast.
What New Zealand lacks in land birds, it more than compensates for with sea birds, and roughly 75% of the countries total species are either coastal or oceanic. At Kaikoura, the continental shelf is very close to shore, and the upwelling of nutrients makes it a stunning place to get up close and personal with these ocean wanderers. We went on three trips with Ocean Wings http://www.oceanwings.co.nz/albatross/ and had fabulous encounters with ten species/subspecies of Albatross, plus other Petrels and Shearwaters.
The other memorable spectacle was at Miranda http://www.miranda-shorebird.org.nz/ on the Firth of Thames, where Arctic-breeding shorebirds winter, sharing the mudflats and shell banks with endemic Wrybill and New Zealand Dotterel. As a Harrier flies over at high tide, thousands of birds take to the air in spectacular choreographed flocks.
Our month passed very quickly; we drove a little under 7000km, stayed in 13 different locations and saw 92 species of birds, including 23 endemics. The memories of the Albatross Encounters, Black Stilt flying over the car near Twizel, lone Yellow-eyed and Fjordland Crested Penguins and the shorebirds at Miranda will endure. I feel a keener awareness now of land use and our inevitable impact on landscapes, concluding that if we could wipe the slate clean and go back 5000 years and start over, would it change, and I feel probably not; money is a demanding mistress.
But just as quickly as one becomes jaded by agriculture, scenic spectacles to rival the worlds best pop up; the waterfalls of the Catlins Region, raging torrents gushing through forest choked with tree ferns and mosses. Glaciers at 200m above rainforest and the Tasman Sea, a site unbelievable to us, used to being at 5500m before our toes are on ice.
A words of caution before I end; the weather, we had only 8 totally dry days, 11 really wet days and the rest lived up to it’s Maori name, Aotearoa, “Land of the Long White Cloud” made it dull and overcast.
Finally, New Zealand did satiate one other desire; we ate plenty of fish and chips!