Rise of the kererū

A holiday Turnstone (2 minute read)

For several days, Wellington has been turning on weather more typical of mid-spring. I’m walking my dog Donna wearing head-to-toe wet weather gear, and thermals underneath. Everything is sodden. But Donna bustles ahead of me, as keen as ever. Her coat is jewelled with hundreds of tiny raindrops, but she was bred from Scottish sheepdogs and doesn’t care.

On a power line above me sit two bedraggled birds – kererū or native pigeons. On a sunny day, their blue-green feathers gleam with a pink lustre, but today they look as grey as the sky. They appear to be enjoying the weather as much as I am.

Kererū are one of my favourite birds and I’m delighted that I see them so often now. Since 2011, when regular counts began in Wellington City, their numbers have more than tripled. The suburb of Khandallah is a stronghold for them, too. They are benefitting from the predator control work and thriving forest in Khandallah Park.

There’s another reason I’m happy to see kererū thrive. When it comes to restoring native forest, they are crucial. More than half of our native tree species have fleshy fruit and are adapted to dispersal by birds which swallow the fruit whole and then deposit the seed away from the parent plant. New Zealand once had a number of large birds capable of swallowing the fruit of important trees such as pūriri¹, tawa, taraire and miro. Some, like the huia, are now extinct. Others, like the kōkako, are so uncommon that they no longer play an important part in seed dispersal. Although smaller birds, such as the tūī, do eat some surprisingly large fruit, the kererū is one of the most important seed dispersers for many native trees.

So far, I haven’t mastered the art of photographing birds, and there’s certainly no chance of it when I’m walking an energetic dog in Wellington’s sideways rain. So, instead of photographs, you are getting more of my 100% human attempts to illustrate the science I’m sharing.

It turns out that kererū are really fun to draw (image credit: Melanie Newfield)

1. More to come on the pūriri tree. It is one of my favourites.