Tiritiri Matangi

Forest and Bird, Issue 307, 1 February 2003, Page 14

Tiritiri Matangi

GORDON ELL

The Open Sanctuary

visits an

island off Auckland where volunteers have created a sanctuary for rare birds.

low, flat island with a lighthouse which once stroked across the gulf waters for 30 sea miles. Now the light is dimmed; the lighthouse-keeper and his wife have become conservation officers. What was 20 years ago abandoned farmland is now an infant forest. In place of a plague of rats, birds as rare as saddleback, stitchbird and takahe uncaringly reveal themselves to visitors. These and other rare birds, once confined on island reserves which only the privileged few could visit, are now accessible to anyone with the price of a ferry ticket. The birds of Tiritiri Matangi are wild and free but their home is an open sanctuary, a display window of what conservation can achieve in New Zealand. While in the care of the Department of Conservation, Tiritiri Matangi has a much broader ‘ownership’ Its restoration as a sanctuary for wildlife has been largely the product of community effort. Much of that began with planting work by conservationists, such as North Shore Forest and Bird, but the ‘restoration of Tiri’ rapidly involved a far wider community — service clubs, students, outdoor recreation clubs and, massively, Auckland schools. The island has long had its own supporters group. For 100 years and more, Tiri was a farmed island with only a few pockets of bush — a valley of northern coastal forest in particular, but most of the remaining trees were introduced Australian wattle. Farm animals were removed in 1972 when the island was added to the late-lamented Hauraki Gulf Maritime Park. Then it reverted to rank grass and bracken, with soft, bouncing beds of muehlenbeckia. if lies at the seagate to Auckland, a

In summer, a huge population of kiore or Pacific rat, proliferated to around 250 a hectare. At that time considered benign, the kiore were the only pests on the island. This led the old Lands and Survey Department to the release of endangered birds such as red-crowned parakeet. Secretive spotless crakes could be enticed from the long grass with a tape recorder. Bellbirds, extinct in Northland for more than 100 years survived here. The potential of the island, just three and a half kilometres from the extending arm of the mainland, was obvious. Initially, scientists at Auckland University sent students there, and developed a plan for revegetating the island. Pohutukawa, seeded on the island, were planted out in rows. Foodbearing shrubs such as coprosmas and pittosporums were dug in at two-metre intervals, the whole looking like a new plantation in the crumpled grass. Rats, which ate the growing shoots (and birds’ eggs) were exterminated. When Tiri light was automated in 1984, the lighthouse-keeper Ray Walter stayed on to manage a nursery which has since produced 20,000 shrubs and saplings a year, for replanting. Altogether, 38 different trees and shrubs have been planted out, with an emphasis on food-bearing species. Cabbage trees, flax and kowhai are conspicuous already while the pohutukawa have been interplanted with slower-growing species such as puriri, kohekohe, rewarewa, mahoe and karaka. Barbara Walter worked as a volunteer, coordinating work parties, making bookings, and running a small gift shop which now helps substantially with development funds. Now a ranger herself, Barbara still looks after visitors

and volunteers, and the couple’s contribution — well beyond the call of public duty — has been rewarded with individual awards of the Queen’s Service Medal. Windswept as the island can be, the plants flourished early and created their own mutual shelter. On the outer edge of the island enriched plantings in the wattle scrub created more shelter. The wattles remained because they were an important source of food for birds through the seasons. Now, in some places after only 10 years or so, the shrubs have merged into a low forest. This makes bird-watching particularly easy because the birds can’t escape into a high canopy. Instead they work their way through the shrublands, close to the ground, or announce themselves by calling from a canopy not too far above head height. The visitor usually lands at a wharf on the Auckland side of the island, to be introduced to the island by a volunteer guide or conservation staff. There are a few simple rules; against feeding birds, keeping to the tracks, no smoking, or bringing pets ashore. For the rest visitors are free to wander, or join a volunteer-guided walk. The trail heads uphill toward the lighthouse; and almost immediately there

are birds. At a waterhole by the track, endangered brown teal may be sheltering beneath the bank; or a takahe chewing grass. These latter are decendants of birds captive-raised on offshore islands and liberated on Tiritiri Matangi where six breeding pairs now nest successfully and raise their chicks in the wild. Turn off the tractor track and walk up the through the young forest watching and listening for birds. Rare and endangered birds are often quite ‘in your face. The cackle of red-crowned parakeet draws the eye to their brilliant kakariki green, as they flash down from the treetops and swoop across the track. Saddleback vigorously assert their territory in a stacatto stutter. Tui and bellbird confusingly mix their melodies, even at midday. The most beautiful sound though is made by kokako, a deep and haunting series of woodwind notes. The track is board-walked where the ground is steep or sensitive. (Petrels occupy some burrows on the forest floor.) In the best bird-watching spots, a platform with seating and an interpretation board, draws attention to the resident species. Some spots include a water bath frequently visited by birds; at others a feeding station offers supplementary food. Such food tables are necessary because the immature

forest still can’t offer a year-round diet of suitable feed for all species. Without this supplementary feeding, stitchbird (formerly restricted to Little Barrier Island) could not sustain their population. Nest boxes are another unusual necessity. Parakeets and saddlebacks are among holenesting species introduced to the island. As the forest is so young, there is a shortage of natural sites, hence the boxes hammered to suitable trees. The North Island robin is one bird which has been particularly successful, breeding sufficiently for some young birds to be captured and shipped over to the mainland where there is more room for them. The pied tit, which usually competes with the robin for food, has not been introduced to Tiri because of this. Saddleback, too, have flourished. Birds bred on Tiritiri Matangi have already been released on Mokoia in Lake Rotorua, the Bay of Islands (unsuccessfully), and into the urban sanctuary in Karori, Wellington. Other small forest birds feed ‘in the wild’. The whitehead, for example, is a ‘gleaner’ picking insects along with the pied fantail but able to feed off berries too.

The island’s track system converges on the lighthouse area where the ranging staff live and store their equipment. Among the neat white buildings is a keeper’s cottage now reserved for visitors, work parties and students staying over. North Shore Forest and Bird put up half the funds to refurbish it to mark the branch’s 25th anniversary. The nursery is here too, an area under shade cloth, where more than 300,000 trees have been raised over the years. There is also a shelter shed where visitors can make a cuppa in return for a gold-coin donation. Barbara Walter is there, answering questions, selling souvenirs of the island, including a fine series of T-shirts bearing portraits of the island’s birds. Sitting on the plastic chairs looking out past a giant tecomanthe vine — a rarity from the Three Kings Island — the visitor

may lunch watching tui bathing in a bird bath, flitting fantails or the unexpected kakariki, or inquisitive old takahe (the eldest retain a memory of being hand-fed in their southern youth). Beyond the lighthouse, the island stretches for a kilometre or more back toward the mainland. Walk along the spine of the island, following the firebreaks between young forest. Birds sweep overhead; pukeko strut in the grass. Off to the north, the seductive shores of Fisherman’s Bay offer an alternative anchorage for visiting ‘boaties. There are cliffs, rock stacks, sea caves and reefs, a population of little blue penguins. This is where the tropical morning glory flowers, in a tangle with New Zealand’s own coastal convolvulus. The deep purple flowers are a striking feature adorning the sun-baked rocks above the sea. They are said to have been brought to New Zealand tangled in the roots of kumara in the canoe migrations from the islands of Polynesia. The main track along the crest of the island extends to Kawerau Point, named for the Maori formerly in possession of this place. Signs of their settlements can still be

located. These were the people who originally cleared most of the forest: the extensive beds of bracken fern would be the source of aruhe, or fern root, a staple food. One valley of the old-time coastal forest survives. This is the source of seeds for revegetating the island. A wooden walkway traverses the valley floor. In the creek bed, fat native fish — grown-up whitebait — find shelter amongst the rotting leaves and branches. Soaring above, the spreading heads of ancient pohutukawa are masked from the ground by the bright green understorey of trees such as wharangi and kohekohe, trees which suffer on the mainland from the depredations of possums. Pest-free Tiritiri Matangi is a boon for trees as well as birds. At length the track emerges on the southern coast among flax and manuka, overlooking rocky coves and sandy beaches. It’s a short return from here to the island’s wharf, but there is interest along the way.

Variable oystercatcher occupy the headland reefs, nesting in summer on the beaches. Flocks of white-fronted tern — the ‘kahawai birds’ which follow the feeding fish — sweep by just offshore, as do the gannets and petrels which patrol the gulf. In little perspex-topped tunnels, several built from cemented stones by members of the Kiwi Conservation Club, little blue penguins brood. In the hatching season, their fluffy brown chicks can be seen in the gloom below. Tiritiri Matangi has always been a landmark in ‘the approaches to Auckland’. It is also now a symbol of what people can do to save rare and endangered species through community effort. — GORDON ELL first visited Tiritiri Matangi before its restoration and wrote about what was planned in Wild Islands, Exploring the Islands of the Hauraki Gulf (Bush Press, Auckland 1982).