Wednesday - Orokonui Ecosanctuary

On Wednesday morning we took 6 kg of rugby programmes and secondhand-bookshop-trawled paperbacks to the South Dunedin post office and posted them snailmail back to Australia. Then we set off for Port Chalmers and lunch at the Carey's Bay Hotel, where we found that we had the place to ourselves. It was a cold but windless day outside and a good fire was roaring in the grate in the front bar. With two pints of Emersons on order, the menu was dissected and two plates of the soup of the day were selected: the creamy oyster, scallop, champagne and brie soup.

Oyster, scallop, champagne and brie soup

 
This unbelievably good soup was made ambrosial with the addition of occasional mouthfuls of Southern Clam stout. If you are at CBH and this is listed on the specials board at the bar, do not miss the opportunity to sample this wonderful dish.






 

View out of the front bar window

 
The All Blacks flag was up the pole across the road, leaving no doubt about whom they were supporting this weekend and there was a beautiful view out of the bar window across the bay to the Otago Peninsula. We could have very comfortably whiled away the whole afternoon there, but we had a 1:30 appointment booked at the bird sanctuary ten minutes drive away over the hill on Blueskin Road.





The Orokonui Ecosanctuary has only been open to the public for a couple of years. It aims to restore to a 307 hectare slice of Otago grass and podocarp woodland the bird and skink/gecko ecosystem it would have had prior to the introduction of mammals and other predators by early explorers. It is the best place in NZ to find out about endangered New Zealand bird species and if you are confused about all those NZ bird names starting with 'k' (kaka, kakapo, kea) and 't' (tui, takahe), a visit to this place will sort that out. They are gaining a reputation as a breeding site and bird nursery and last week were given ten rare 12-month old Haast tokoeka birds from Fiordland to raise to maturity. These are first kiwi to roam in the Dunedin region in 140 years.

However, since we were there in the afternoon and the kiwi is nocturnal, we weren't going to see any on our two hour foot tour with our guide Sophie. After paying $49 each in the beautiful education centre with its great view of Blueskin Bay, we set off for the security gate in the 8.7 km of predator- proof boundary fence. This fence is made of finely welded stainless steel mesh, buried under gravel and topped with an unclimbable lid and a solar powered electronic alarm, all designed to keep out rodents, stoats, cats and the like. We cleared out our backpacks in the compulsory search for mice and passed through the gate and followed the Kaka Track signs on the other side. In our two hours we were going to complete a loop trail that covers only 10% of the sanctuary area and there are many other tracks to explore. It is possible to pay $15 entry and walk for the whole day in the forest having only native birds for company, but for our first visit, we wanted to get a grounding in what we were listening to and seeing, rather than wander off aimlessly by ourselves learning next to nothing.

Orokonui education centre, architect-designed, everything recycled

Orokonui predator-proof boundary fence

We saw many species of bird on the tour including fleeting glimpses of the riflebird. We tried as best we could to photograph them, but the photos on the website are much more compelling. There are bird feeding stations with bottles of honey water set up at a few locations on the track and at these stations the kaka have a central pedal-operated box of almonds and cashews they can raid on whim. There was a particularly good viewing platform on the Kaka Track where green bellbirds, tui and a pair of kaka were swooping around and onto the table in an obvious pecking order, perhaps not dissimilar to the holding pattern of planes at Heathrow, but much more rowdy. The kaka are large, smart parrots, inclined to mischief and closely related to the kea (the car strippers who love rubber and metal bits).

Four bellbirds at a bird feeding station, the kaka bird nut feeder is the silver box with foot pedal

Bellbird

Kaka at honey water feeder

Cleopatra the aviary kaka, chewing wood

The tui: petrol blue colourings and distinctive small white "muff" at throat

The staff and volunteers have set up 1000 boxes measuring 450 x 50 x 50 mm around the fenced site, each containing a rectangular sheet of paper with a central island of indelible ink and a food lure. Any animal or insect invading the box will leave its marks on the paper. The boxes are visited on a monthly basis by volunteers and any prints on the paper are assessed and the monitoring frequency adjusted accordingly and traps set if a predator is recorded.

They are also actively improving habitat to help with the future introduction of other bird species, particularly their open grassland, where they hope to host foraging takahe in coming years.

Sophie also spoke of their hope to start a breeding population of kakapo (flightless parrot) and mentioned that they had recently been visited for ten days by Sirocco, the rockstar kakapo.  He's about thirty years old and is a "spokesbird" on wildlife conservation issues, has his own seat on aircraft and this fortnight he is on sabbatical in Wellington. This bird has travelled the world and was made famous in this funny BBC2 clip (featuring a voiceover by Stephen Fry) where Sirocco gets happy with an ornithologist.

We spent another hour at the Kaka Track feeding table after the end of the tour photographing, filming and standing listening to the birdsong. It's an enthralling experience to get this close to such beautiful birds and we're hoping for another opportunity to visit this site before the end of our trip.