Luring the wild

Forest and Bird, Issue 279, 1 February 1996, Page 40

Luring the wild

JACQUI BARRINGTON

meets the man

penind tne bird calis that have beguiled generations of National Radio listeners -- and finds him still hankering for one last quest for an elusive native bird.

| | | | UICKSILVER" Kendrick he was to the former Wildlife Service; and at almost 74 John Kendrick displays the same mercurial mind — and body — that earned his nickname. He fairly sparkles recalling his ground-breaking recording of native birds (whose legacy survives in National Radio’s morning bird call). Near his Whangaparaoa home, this coordinator of Hibiscus Coast’s Kiwi Conservation Club, twinkles up steep hillsides at breakneck speed, talking all the while. His English father came out in 1899; after breaking in and farming 700 hectares near Kawhia for 17 years he moved to a small farm near Hamilton where John was born. Growing up in the relatively unspoiled Waikato in the 1920s and 30s, and encouraged by their father, John and his sister became nature enthusiasts. Their "bibles" were Moncrieff’s New Zealand Birds and How to Identify Them and later the first, 1930, edition of W B. Oliver’s New Zealand Birds. These were pre-electricity days, when big oil lamps lit the evenings to the call of myriad moreporks or ruru and the days were filled with the song of tui

and bellbird. But he also remembers the first mynas arriving in the Waikato when he was just seven. They nested in a nearby farm building, and local boys wanted to kill them, but were prevented by John. In hindsight he wishes he hadn’t interfered. Like his friend, wildlife photographer Geoff Moon, he now recognises them, and the magpie, as significant intruders into the New Zealand environment. Secondary school saw natural history take a back seat to a growing interest in electronics and this led to his first job — assistant projectionist with a travelling cinema. Two tonnes of equipment were hauled in caravans around the outlying district to places like the Ngaroma mill, which at this time was working its way through the northern part of Pureora forest. Some venues, like Marakopa, required a whole day’s gruelling travel over clay roads to set up the show. When World War II broke out, John signed up with the Waikato Mounted Rifles. His morse and radio skills soon saw him attached to Signals Division but, following illness, he was discharged. For the next five years he ran the family dairy farm while pursuing his qualifications in radio. In 1950 he became very active in the newly formed New

Zealand Speleological Society. For John, caving was a dream come true, "sporting science" where he could push his physical limits to the maximum, at the same time as extending scientific boundaries through the discovery of fossil and subfossil bird bones. These finds included one complete moa skeleton laid out on the sandy floor of a cave, and kakapo remains only 20 kilometres from the centre of Hamilton. His discoveries helped expand the number of known New Zealand bird species and redefine the historical distributions of others. Meanwhile with the Waikato Tramping Club he explored the Raglan Hills and the Karakariki Bush, which at that time were still marvellously diverse. Today there’s little left, he mourns, pointing the finger at the great push to break in marginal land for production following the War. Before then, despite the enormous changes wrought on the landscape, wild New Zealand was still alive and well, he asserts. The destruction with the most telling impact has all been in the last 50 years. he ran an electronics business for eight years. In 1960 he bought one of the first J OHN MOVED into Hamilton where

mobile tape recorders, and at this point his two interests — electronics and nature — merged during a trip across the East Cape, from Ruatoria to Te Kaha. He becomes even more animated describing the ecological Shangri-La that was the Raukumaras only 30 years ago. With no tracks and surrounded by dense forest unmodified by possums or deer, it was map and compass work all the way. High bluffs falling sheer more than a hundred metres to the rivers had helped ensure the area’s isolation. Often John and his companions had to wade neck-deep through the river, surrounded by boulders the size of houses. Though pigs — "real razor-backed Captain-Cookers" — and wild bush cattle had made incursions for over a century, the magnificence and diversity of the bush remained overwhelming. So captivated was John by this wilderness that he returned in 1962 for a more exhaustive study. He describes in his journal how they "were especially fortunate to hear a full chorus of bellbird song early one morning. Often spoken of by old-time bushmen, but seldom heard these days, it resembled the chiming of many small bells all blending together in a most melodious manner." A decade later John went back to the Raukumaras with Don Merton and Ian Atkinson. Strange calls had been reported, similar to what we now know to be kakapo booming, in the headwaters of the Tapuwaeroa River. They failed to find any kakapo — but there were now plenty of deer and possum. Atkinson’s report prophetically warned that their destructive presence would contribute to severe erosion and recommended creating a forest park to protect the rare alpine flora of Mounts Honokawa and Hikurangi. When John returned yet again, in 1993, it was a different world. A road now ran to the old station that had been their base camp. Hunters had cut a horse track to Te Kumi flats where DoC had installed a tin hut. Cyclones Bernie (1971) and Bola (1988) had tumbled the once-great forests. Deer and possums abounded but mistletoe and kaka had entirely disappeared. Kereru numbers were noticeably low. And, in contrast to the primeval silence of the 1960s when no planes overflew this area, the inescapable clatter of helicopters now ripped the air. "Sometimes ... if you really love a place, it’s better not to go back," John says. In 1962 he began intermittent field work -"for love" — with the New Zealand Wildlife Service. Brian Bell led a trip to the

Mercury Islands, while Don Merton was the leader to Taranga (Hen) Island off the Northland coast, where they studied the very last natural population of saddleback. Here it was that John pioneered luring birds with taped songs. Combined with a stuffed decoy and the sudden startling appearance of the operator, the agile birds were eventually netted for transfer to Middle Chicken Island. Don and John next visited Great Barrier, where they "rediscovered" the sole island population of kokako (alas no more; the last two known birds were relocated to Little Barrier last year), and

found the place teeming with brown teal and petrels. On this particular trip Don raised the possibility of John officially joining the Wildlife Service team. So it was that, at the age of 42, John Kendrick became au-dio-visual officer with the New Zealand Wildlife Service, charged (among other duties)

with setting up and maintaining a sound library. His new job soon took him to another magical but very different place Adams Island in the Auckland Island group and one of the world’s largest unmodified islands. It was here, in 1965, that John found a bird not seen since 1852 — the Auckland Island rail, one of which was captured and transferred to Mt Bruce for further study. He recalls filming the hundreds of wandering and royal albatrosses, skuas, petrels and sooty shearwaters which crowded the island and its straits — and realising that at last he’d found his true vocation. "HE WILDLIFE SERVICE job meant a move to Wellington, where he met his wife, Lorna. Eighteen years were spent working with wildlife trainees on audio-visual subjects and the presentation of up to 50 public lectures a year. 1973 saw John again with Don Merton, this time tracking kakapo — "the most captivating bird imaginable" — in Milford Sound and uncovering, through infrared photography, the secrets of their bowls and booming. The amorous but lonely males, thwarted in their courtship, ended up redirecting their mating displays toward the startled wildlife team. The bird calls painstakingly collected and stored in the Sound Archives became nationally famous when, in 1974, National ees

Radio’s early morning programme began playing the call of the ruru and 15 other native birds John had recorded. The bird call has been an enduring feature of radio now for over two decades. After ten years in the job John was granted a Churchill Fellowship to Britain to study with the BBC Natural History Unit and to Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology in the US. In 1983, a year after his retirement, he won an award to attend a natural sound seminar in Australia. Asked which of all the songs he finds the most beautiful, John doesn’t hesitate: the North Island kokako has "the most

varied, complex and haunting birdsong in New Zealand". The tape technique he pioneered was used with great success to locate kokako in the forests of the Mamaku and West Taupo, revealing Pureora in particular to be an area of outstanding wildlife value. In the Gaples

Valley in 1983, John recorded what he believes to be the song of the South Island kokako, thought by many to be extinct. His recordings seem to match Buller’s written descriptions of "a long plaintive double-note, pitched in a minor key, very pleasant to hear, but ... possessing less richness than the organ-note of the North Island bird. At other times a short mellifluous whistle, and every now and then a liquid bell-note ... indistinguishable from the evening tolling of the tui." "The most elusive bird imaginable," John says. "We found its chew marks on pieces of orange rind, saw signs of its distinctive moss-browsing, heard its heavy wing beats as well as its song, and even found a feather on Stewart Island, but the birds themselves always managed to remain remote or unseen." He’s still hopeful, however, of sighting the South Island kokako and is planning — maybe — one last trip. After all, hope, adventure and excitement keep a person young — and he didn’t get that "Quicksilver" nickname for nothing. @

The most elusive bird imaginable- We saw signs of its distinctive moss- browsing; heard Its heavy wing beats as well as its song; and even found a feather; but the birds themselves always managed to remain remote or unseen:

JACQuI BARRINGTON is Forest and Bird’s northern field officer and 1s based in Auckland.