A gift of geology
The Garden Bird Survey makes me grateful our city has space for forest (8 minute read)
Yesterday would have been the perfect day for me to do the New Zealand Garden Bird Survey. I kept looking out the window at the clear sky and perfectly flat harbour, and wishing I was outside. But I had work to complete by the end of the day, and I knew I’d be working late. I couldn’t spare an hour.
Today, the wind is up. There’s a layer of thin cloud across the sky, so it’s not exactly grey, but it’s not clear either. After five minutes of birdwatching, I had to stop and put on a heavy jacket, and I’m still cold. But rain is promised tomorrow, and I’m heading away to attend a couple of family events after that. I’m determined to get this done, so it’s now or never.
Despite the cold, I appreciate the location of my house and how lucky I am to be here. I’m standing on my deck, and I can see a park across the road and Wellington Harbour beyond that. I’ve lived here for 19 years, and I’ve never got tired of the view. It’s also a great spot to watch for birds. Strictly speaking, none of them are in my garden, but it’s okay to record the birds in a local park, and that’s what I’m doing.
To begin with, it doesn’t seem like a promising time. I can hear an unknown number of sparrows and a blackbird, but not much else. I know that if I did it first thing in the morning, there would be more birds but, again, I had things which needed to be done first. I need to be satisfied with what I get. An hour of observation is still valuable, so I’m going to treasure this time. I don’t often stop and just focus on noticing things.
I record a distant gull, a juvenile karoro, mottled in grey-brown. Donna trots up to me, her toenails tap-tap-tapping on the deck. She stands leaning against me for a few seconds, then trots away again. She’s already done this several times while I’ve been setting myself up and since I’ve been observing. She doesn’t like it when I do nothing, especially not when I’m outside. As far as she’s concerned, I should be doing something with her.
It's not as peaceful here as it looks. The noise from the motorway is distant but loud enough to be intrusive. There’s a small dog barking from one of the houses overlooking the park. A couple of people turned up at the park with their dogs, and that started it off. It does this almost every time someone brings a dog to the park, so it must be in a constant state of hysteria, which can’t be healthy. I wish the owners would put it somewhere it couldn’t see the park.
I watch the dogs across the road. They are the kind of poodle cross which is so popular around here, one a pale honey colour, the other, slightly smaller, a milk chocolate brown. The smaller one is determined to play, and it’s not taking no for an answer. The other dog keeps running away, jumping up beside its owner for attention, but she ignores it. The small dog in the house overlooking the park keeps barking.
Between barks, I hear a faint call from a riroriro. It must be somewhere in the native trees which surround the park. Although it’s not exactly primeval forest, it seems to be quite good bird habitat. I hear a riroriro almost every time I walk there, as well as tūī. In spring, I usually hear a shining cuckoo, and it’s fairly common to spot a kōtare (kingfisher) or kererū on the power lines above the park. Once, I saw a flock of six kākā. Today doesn’t seem like the kind of day I’m going to see all of those, but I’ve only been watching ten minutes so far.
This is not the first session I’ve spent birdwatching for this year’s Garden Bird Survey. I also spent an hour at Cashmere Park, along with the couple who have been leading the restoration group there. They’re keen birders and are far better than me at recognising calls and judging how many birds are present. We stood in the middle of the grassy field, almost entirely encircled by steep hills with regenerating forest, except to the south, which looks over the harbour. It’s a fabulous spot for watching Wellington’s suburban birds.
