Entranced by kakas
15 August 1957
Tuesday 15 August 1957
... After lunch I whipped up the hill for a last look at the vegetation and then down to the jetty by 2.30pm to meet the ‘Arataki’, my luggage having gone down by truck [a kind of tram that ran on rails down the steep hillside] at midday ... I backed down the ladder and bade Moko farewell, rejoining the cheery Captain and crew of the naval tug ... Within half an hour of setting off I was leaning over the rail outside the wheelhouse, hanging grimly on, as before, though the seas were not quite as mountainous this time ...
Had the weather been better [at Little Barrier] the ‘Arataki’ crew were coming ashore to a meal and anchoring off the beach for the night. As it was, we waved them adieu and they disappeared ...
The island approximately 7000 acres, 2378 feet high, the skyline rugged with the many points of ‘Mount Many Peaks’ and the whole covered with dense bush scarred by water-filled creeks which terminated in hanging valleys and plunged over the cliff edge to the sea. We picked up our bags and wended our way over the boulders, across a stile and through a paddock of new-born lambs and their Mas to the red-and-yellow one-storey house which nestled in the lee of the heavily bushed cliffs ...
A warm evening by a log fire after “a light snack” of two chunks of deliciously tender steak, each topped with a poached egg, and followed by figs grown on the premises and submerged in thick clotted cream. The Parkins had killed a steer a few days before and the fridge was chock full of meat. I found my host and hostess witty and full of fun and we talked of many things, including all the local lighthouse scandal, as though we had known each other for years. Then to a welcome bed ...
Friday 16 August 1957
Was awakened to my first day on Little Barrier with a cup of tea and sliver of home-made bread and butter, then up to a breakfast commencing with home-grown grapefruit, and continuing with porridge submerged under dollops of thick cream. What was left of the porridge (and the margin allowed was always great) was put out in a dish for the birds, thickly sprinkled with sugar in deference to the nectar-loving traits of the tuis and bellbirds. And the birds came, in startling numbers and hues – were, in fact, already waiting in expectation of the regular treat. Kakas – big brown parrots with patches of crimson – were well to the fore, fifteen or so at a time. Like the smaller green parakeets they used their feet a lot, holding a dob of porridge up to the beak, two toes pointing forward and two splayed out behind, while they balanced on one leg. It was amusing to see one kaka feeding from the porridge held in another’s foot, while others picked bits off the heads of their fellows. Each time they scattered for a breather their place was taken by the handsome tuis with slender curved beak, white pom-pom necktie, white streaks on the nape and wonderful deep blue sheen on the feathers. Yet smaller again but no less brilliant were the olive green and yellowish bellbirds which had been fluting their clear bell-like notes from the trees earlier ... Two troughs, one a hollowed, horizontally placed log, were kept constantly filled with syrup made from sugar, and the kakas, tuis and bellbirds sipped from these throughout the day ...
After breakfast I went off with the Parkins to do a spot of shepherding. Lambs were being dropped all over the place and twins had to be located and brought back to the home paddock. This was not only to ensure that the ewes got better fed, but also a precautionary measure as the young ewes were inclined to rear only one of twins and desert the second. Singles were allowed to stay further from supervision. New young were ringed and the males castrated, the former being in lieu of docking – a bloodless method in which a strong rubber ring was put over the tail so that circulation was stopped and the tail atrophied and dropped off. Lambs so treated expressed not the slightest concern ...
Sunday 18 August 1957
... after the usual morning tea, I set off along an easterly track to visit a cliff top colony of pied shags. A little metal tag on a tree indicated where I was to leave the path and I plunged steeply down through what appeared to be an impenetrable thicket, guided only by the evil stench and loud clamour of the shags and the knowledge that I was to descend. How I envied the monkey tribe their fifth appendage – it was veritably a matter of hang on and slither to the next handhold. My downward slither halted at the top of a 150ft drop, on the crest of which were the nesting trees, and I busied myself for the next hour creeping around listing guano-splashed and dying plants and taking photos of the handsome black and white birds with brilliant orange face patch.
There were young of all ages in the nest and it was fascinating to watch them begging for food, necks stretched vertically upwards and gyrating from side to side, Ma or Pa eventually gulping violently and regurgitating some tasty morsel to satisfy them ...
Tuesday 20 August 1957
I was off to visit the shags from below today, going along the beach, and was bullied off immediately after breakfast as the tide as coming in and there were two places where I was likely to get cut off if I didn’t look slippy. Zero hour was 11am, up to then I could get through by wading and, as the sea was almost flat calm for a change, it would be possible to wade. I picked my way along the boulders and remained in the danger zone without an umbrella to protect from shags, only long enough to list the plants and take a photo ...
Saturday 24 August 1957
The day dawned cloudy but still and the sea was millpond calm. As indicated over the Auckland radio ... my boat arrived at 8am prompt. A gracefully shaped 55ft launch with one long cabin above deck ... A smiling Kiwi rowed ashore for me and I boarded with only one wet foot (I was prepared, sockless and in my oldest plimsols). I shook hands over the stern with my newfound friends with whom I had had so many laughs in the past nine days and they pushed us off on the next lap of the journey.
