A lite of islands and adventure

Forest and Bird, Volume 16, Issue 2, 1 May 1985, Page 20

A lite of islands and adventure

by

Gerard Hutching

R emote, bird-haunted islands have always attracted Ronald Lockley; as a child he was profoundly influenced by such books as Robinson Crusoe, Coral Island and The Swiss Family Robinson. Skokholm Island, of the south-west coast of his native Wales, may not have been a Pacific paradise but it held sufficient romantic adventure for him to pioneer there for12 years until the Second World War broke out. These days the 81-year-old Lockley is content to gaze out from his Auckland ‘"House Above the Sea’’ to nearby Rangitoto, Waiheke, Motutapu, Motuihe, Motukorea and more distant Great Barrier Island in the Hauraki Gulf. At an age when most people’s horizons have closed in, he continues to have a boyhood longing: "‘I still dream of retiring to live on a remote, unspoilt island, but know that at my age I probably won’t,’’ he says with regret. Despite that, at 75 he took a pack on his back and lived with Eskimoes in the Canadian Arctic. Since then he has visited Antarctica twice (stopping off at Scott Base, the Auckland, Campbell, Macquarie and Snares Islands) and in 1982 landed on islands in the pack ice north of Spitzbergen where he encountered polar bears, walrusses and Arctic sea birds. A year later he cruised to Tierra del Fuego, the Falklands, South Georgia and the islands of the Weddell Sea.

It is the naturalist’s abiding fascination with nature that has inspired these journeys to remote parts — coupled with a love of adventure and inability to live a humdrum existence that is the lot of most.

As a young man he wrote: ‘‘Most men spend their whole lives earning their daily bread in the bowels of darkness — for it does not matter whether it is a city office, a cowhouse or coalmine, they are all dark enough."’ The patterns of his life were set early; well before he had heard of Henry David Thoreau he had discovered the truth of the statement: ‘‘I have never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude,’’ although with four sisters and a brother he was never short of human contact. From a young age, inspired by his literary heroes, he decided to pursue the career of a lone naturalist. He was ‘‘mentally stunned’’ upon reading Thoreau’s Walden, or Life in the Woods, a book which became his bible, expressing all his youthful ideas and wishes in exquisite prose.

Longing to live like Crusoe However, it would be some time before Lockley could live in quiet contemplation on an uninhabited island. A determined mother with thoughts of security persuaded him, on leaving school, to start a small holding in Monmouthshire. ‘I was forever longing to get away, like most young men, and live a Crusoe life on a remote island, especially one which might be full of birds.’’ In 1927 he discovered and settled on Skokholm — its little farm was derelict, occupied by thousands of seabirds (10,000 pairs of muttonbirds or shearwaters, 500 of storm petrels, 20,000 puffins and many others). ‘‘Here I established the first coastal observatory and ringing station in Britain in 1933. After the war it was reopened and you can still stay there. I was able to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 1983 by visiting the island."’ Lockley was also responsible for establishing bird observatories elsewhere on British coasts, including the Channel Islands. On coming to live in New Zealand he became co-founder of this country’s first, on the Firth of Thames, managed by the Miranda Naturalists Trust. Among the studies he carried out on Skokholm were long distance homing experiments with sea birds, sending shear-

At 75 he took a pack on his back and lived with Eskimoes in the Canadian Arctic.

Ronald Lockley, at 81, still dreams of far-off, remote worlds. Photo: G. Hutching waters breeding on the island to Venice, Boston and elsewhere. They returned at amazing speeds to their mates and burrows on Skokholm. One such occasion took him to Ireland, 60 miles across the sea from Skokholm. He took the train west to Shannon, where he planned to release a shearwater. ‘"When you release a sea bird, it’s best to drop it into the water from a height so as to give it space to gather its wings. I planned to release it from Shannon Bridge, which is a tremendous high bridge above the sea like the one across the Waitemata. ‘*T had this shearwater beside me in the train compartment. It was very restless, making squawking noises, so I opened the top of its box to give it air. Presently a guard came along and said ‘Phwat have you got there, sir?’ Ah, I said, just a shearwater. ‘And phwat would you be doin’ with him?’ Just a homing experiment, I said, explaining that when I got to Limerick I was going to walk back to the Shannon Bridge and drop it. ‘Begorra, there’ll be no need for the trouble to be walking so far, sir. Begorra, I shall stop the train in the middle of the bridge for thee.’ ‘"To my amazement and joy he stopped this train in the middle of the bridge, with people staring out of the windows. I had to warn him I couldn’t throw the bird direct from the train, it might hit the steel of the bridge. He said not to worry, I could get down from the train and do the job properly. How wonderful and typically Irish,’’ Lockley recounts the tale with pleasure. Fighting for wildlife His encounters with New Zealand officials haven’t run as smoothly, however, especially over the battle to save his beloved Tahuna Torea Reserve from becoming a rubbish tip. Situated just below his Tamaki Estuary home, where he has lived since settling in New Zealand in 1972, this open space was threatened ten years ago. Becoming honorary secretary of the local protection society, Lockley mobilised resistance to fight the tip, enlisting the help of the Forest and Bird Society, the university and other conservation bodies. Today the reserve is a peaceful area much visited by those who wish to contemplate the rich wildlife — the godwits, knots, torea, stilts, terns, herons and kingfishers. By an ironic twist, in 1974 the Tamaki Estuary Protection Society was unexpectedly awarded a $1500 prize for the best example in New Zealand that year of environmental improvement — recognition that the city council, once eager to turn the reserve into a dump, are now proud of, boasting of ‘‘this fine asset, a wilderness within a city.’’ Lockley’s first visit to New Zealand was in 1962, when he had an immediate introduction into the unfortunate fate of

some of this country’s endangered birds — he was taken to camp in Fiordland’s Notornis Valley and shown what the Wildlife Service was doing for the takahe. The general state of environmental awareness was not high at the time, he recalls. ‘"The Government seemed totally uninterested in wildlife, despite pioneers like Sir Robert Falla, Sir Charles Fleming and the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, which had a smaller membership then.

"‘T hadn’t any plan to live in New Zealand then until our children began to produce some grandchildren here. I was delighted with the pristine beauty of New Zealand, and the wonderful welcome when you come here — one is accepted as part of a big happy family. The country people are splendid, with no nonsense about a stratified society as in Britain. You are taken on your merits, and it’s ‘shake hands and get on with the job.’ which suits me very much,"’ he says. The Wildlife Service comes in for his praise because of the willingness of its staff to get stuck into its task. ‘‘For the miserable amount of finance alloted by our Government, the Service does absolute wonders. Its dedicated field officers and scientists have got tremendous determination and flair to go places and do things — they’re not office bound. Write a letter to the Wildlife and you will be lucky to get a reply in a month — they are all working outdoors,’’ he says. Remarkable achievement Pressure groups such as Forest and Bird also have an enormous role to play in making politicians and officials aware of the need for conservation, he emphasises. Lockley has been an active member of the Society, becoming chairman of the Auckland branch in 1977. He notes with satisfaction that nationwide membership has doubled over the past decade. "T think it’s one of the most remarkable achievements of any conservation organisation in the world. I used to be a council member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Britain, which now has about half a million

members. The fact that Forest and Bird has more than 40,000 members is a triumph when you consider there are only three million people in New Zealand.’’ His life habit of keeping a daily diary of nature observations has helped Lockley to produce more than 50 books on outdoor subjects. One of these, The Private Life of the Rabbit, was the pioneering study acknowledged by Richard Adams as the the major source for Watership Down. His first New Zealand book, Man Against Nature, was a cri du coeur for conservation. At all times a despair for the future informs his writing — in his eyes humankind deserves less sympathy than the animals. The House Above the Sea contains the following passage: ‘‘There is a deep, underlying dread today that the fearridden warlords of the Kremlin, Pentagon and Peking, stockpiling more and more highly sophisticated long range weaponry, will one day soon (purposely or by accident) pull the trigger ona chain atomic blast that will wipe out our decadent urban civilisation, and most other human life on the land."’ Lockley sees examples for man in the "*wise cetaceans’’ — whales and dolphins — which do not pollute or over-populate their environment. He believes they are wiser than humans, with their larger brains and capacities for the ‘‘higher emotions’’ supposedly only present in humans. The naturalist continues to lead a busy and productive life. Rising at between four and five each day, he writes, then depending on the weather and state of the tide might nature watch in the Tahuna Torea Reserve. High water is the best time for waders, here provided with special mud islands on which they can rest and sleep, safe from humans. Reading has always been his special relaxation. Like many dreamers — he says he is an escapist — Lockley did not enjoy the routine of school, failing matriculation and early abandoning high school as a result. His late discovery of good books was an exciting revelation: ‘‘T seemed to sit on a stage with an audience of a hundred authors of genius shouting at me, demanding to be read. Read my philosophy first! Read my theory! Read my economy! Read my Utopia! Read my poetry! Read my idealism! Read my realism!’’ (Myself When Young). At present he is reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace, ‘‘probably for the twelfth time.’’ Like his beloved shearwaters, in the autumn of his years Lockley has migrated to warmer climes. After living in beautiful, wet, windy Wales for 60 years, he says he enjoys the constant sunshine and warm climate of New Zealand, and the equally warm welcome of New Zealanders. ‘‘I can’t think of a better environment for retirement at my age,’’ he says. , a

The fact that Forest and Bird has 40,000 members is a triumph when you consider there are only three million people in New Zealand.