By the time we had finished filming it was sunset, and we suddenly became aware that the Brothers were not just semi-barren lumps of rock populated entirely by lighthouse keepers and tuataras. Fairy penguins appeared in small groups and hopped their way up the rocks towards their nest burrows, pausing every now and then to throw back their heads and utter a loud, braying cry reminiscent of a small but extremely enthusiastic donkey. Then the fairy prions – delicate little swallow-like petrels – started to arrive. It is with the fairy prions that the tuataras have worked out an amicable housing arrangement: the prion digs a burrow for the receptions of its eggs and the tuataras move in and live with the prions in what appears to be perfect harmony. This is principally because the prions are out at sea, fishing, during most of the day, and so only really make use of the burrow at night at least when they are not incubating. The tuataras, on the other hand, come out at night in their hunt for beetles, crickets and other provender, so, as the day shift of prions is winging its way back in the evening light, the tuatara night shift is just leaving. It seems an admirable but curious relationship; the tuataras are perfectly capable of digging their own burrows (and in many cases do), but the prions seem to offer no objection to the tuataras invading their nests. Whether the tuataras are ever ungrateful enough to eat the eggs or young of the prions is a moot point, but it would not be altogether surprising, for reptiles, by and large, have little conscience.
As the sun touched the horizon the fairy penguins started to come ashore in droves, and the prions glided in like pale ghosts to settle among the low undergrowth and then shuffle awkwardly, in a swift-like manner, down their nesting burrows. As soon as they had disappeared underground they would start talking to each other in a series of loud, purring grunts, squeaks and pigeon-like cooings. As the nest burrows were fairly close together, one could hear twenty or thirty conversations going on at the same time and this, combined with the braying of the penguins, made the whole island literally shake. The nearer ones were, of course, the loudest, but by attuning your ear you discovered that the whole island was vibrating like a gigantic harp with this constant underground chorus.
At length the sun dipped below the sea, the sky turned blood red and then faded rapidly into darkness full of stars, and the yellow, vigilant beam of the lighthouse started to revolve slowly round and round. Presently, full of food, tired, but contented with our day’s work, we picked our way down to our hut. While the others were sorting out who was going to sleep where, I took the torch and walked along the cliff edge. The prions and penguins were still calling with undiminished enthusiasm and then suddenly, in my torch beam, I saw a tuatara. He was a huge male, his white frill standing up stiffly along his back, his heavy head raised as he gazed at me with his enormous eyes. After having spotted him I switched off the torch, for the moonlight was quite bright enough for me to watch him. He remained stationary for a few minutes and then started to walk very slowly, and with great dignity, through the undergrowth. All around me the ground shook with the twittering, braying, squeaking and snoring of the birds and the tuatara strolled majestically through his moonlit kingdom like a dragon. Presently he paused again, looking at me haughtily – but the effect was spoilt, for nature has designed his mouth in a half smile – and then disappeared into the undergrowth.
I wandered sleepily back to the hut and found all the others curled up in their camp beds.
‘Ah!’ said Jim, poking his head out from what appeared to be a pile of some twenty blankets, ‘you’re interested in birds, aren’t you, Gerry? Well, you’ll be delighted to know that there are a couple of penguins who’ve got a semi-detached right under the floor of this hut.’
He had hardly finished speaking before the most raucous braying started up immediately beneath my feet. It was so loud it made speech impossible and, if we had not been so tired, it would have made sleep impossible, for the penguins sang part songs at five-minute intervals throughout the night, but, I reflected as I jammed a pillow over my head, it had been worth it just to see that one tuatara moving with such superb nonchalance through the undergrowth of this, his own island.
The Bird that Vanished
But the valley grew narrow and narrower still
And the evening got darker and colder.
Hunting of the Snark
In 1948 a discovery was made in New Zealand that shook the ornithological world out of its usual comatose condition in an incredible manner – no less than the discovery (or re-discovery) of a bird that had vanished, a bird that had, for the last fifty years, been believed to be extinct. It was, to give it its full title, the notornis or takahe (Notornis mantelli), and the whole history of this bird is one of the most fascinating in the annals of ornithology.
The first takahe was discovered in 1850, and excited even the staid naturalists of those days. The bird had been known to the Maoris from both North and South Islands, but in North Island it was only known from fossil remains. In South Island, the Maoris said, the takahe had been common, particularly around the shore of Te Anau and Manapouri, two large glacial lakes. It was so common, in fact, that the Maoris used to organise annual hunts during the winter, when the snows up in the mountains drove the birds down to lower levels in search of food, but by the time the Europeans came to the area, only fossil remains could be found. Then, in 1849, the first live one was caught on Resolution Island in Dusky Sound by a party of sealers, who did what human beings usually do in these circumstances: they ate it. Two years later another takahe was discovered and presumably suffered the same fate, but fortunately the skins of both these birds were obtained by a gentleman called Mantell, who sent them to the Natural History Museum in London. For twenty-eight years after this the takahe vanished again, as mysteriously as it had reappeared, then, in 1879, another specimen was caught near Lake Te Anau, and in 1898 yet another was caught by a dog in the same vicinity. Now it seemed as though the takahe was really extinct, that it had followed in the footsteps of that other famous flightless bird, the dodo, for fifty years passed and there was no sign of it at all.
But there was a Dr G.B. Orbell who did not believe that the takahe had suffered the fate of the dodo, and in 1948 he set out on an expedition to see if he could find it. The place he chose was an old glacial valley which lay high up in the mountains on the western shores of Lake Te Anau. His expedition was not a success for, apart from seeing some ill-defined footprints and hearing some unusual bird calls, he found no proof that the takahe was still in existence. Nothing daunted, he went back to the valley seven months later, and there he found a small breeding colony of the elusive bird. This is the sort of discovery that every naturalist dreams of making, but only one in a million achieves, and so I can understand and envy the delight which Dr. Orbell must have felt when he caught his first glimpse of a real, live takahe. The day after his discovery, of course, the reappearance of the takahe was headline news all over the world, and the New Zealand government, fearing a sudden influx of sightseers, ornithologists and other fellow travellers into this tiny valley – thus disturbing the colony – stepped in with commendable promptitude and immediately declared the whole area a vast sanctuary, making it out of bounds to anyone who was not an accredited scientist or naturalist, and even their visits were under government and Wildlife Department supervision. So the takahe (numbering, as far as he could judge between thirty and fifty birds) was secure in its own sanctuary at last, a sanctuary measuring some seven hundred square miles.
Shortly after we had arrived in Wellington I had met Gordon Williams who, at the time the takahe was rediscovered, was a biologist attached to the New Zealand Wildlife Service. He told me about the second part of the takahe story which was, if anything, even more remarkable than the first.
The birds in their remote valley were certainly anything but safe, in spite of the fact that the whole area had been designated a sanctuary and no unauthorised person was let in. To begin with, their numbers were minute and it was quite possible for a sudden influx of the intro
duced stoat and weasel to wipe them out, or for a similar influx of introduced deer or opossums to do much the same thing by their damage to the trees, thus altering the whole habitat of the bird. So, once again, one of New Zealand’s native birds was being threatened by introduced animals. It was obviously impossible to patrol the valley to make sure that predators, deer and opossums did not get into it, so there was only one thing to do to ensure the safety of the takahe, and that was to try to establish a breeding colony of them in captivity; but this was not quite so easy as it appeared on the surface. First, a site for the experiment had to be chosen which closely resembled the Takahe Valley; then public opinion had to be weaned on to the side of the experimenters, for a lot of well-meaning people – not fully understanding the ramifications of the problems and the dangers that faced the newly rediscovered birds – were against ‘putting them in cages’. The first problem was solved by finding a very suitable area up at Mount Bruce, some eighty miles from Wellington, and public opinion was at last persuaded that the whole scheme was for the good of the birds. So Operation Takahe came into being.
Now, as Gordon Williams explained, came the hardest part of all. In those days the only way to get into and out of the valley was to climb from the shores of Lake Te Anau up the steep, thickly forested slopes over extremely difficult terrain until you reached the narrow gorge entering the valley, two thousand five hundred feet above. This was difficult enough (as previous expeditions had found out) even if you were just going up there to film or collect scientific data; but to climb up there, collect live takahe and bring them down again, was a feat that would make even the most hardened collector blanch. It was obvious that these difficulties ruled out the capture and transportation of fully adult birds, for everything taken up into or brought down out of the valley had to be transported by pack, and it was felt that the adult birds would not survive the journey; therefore, the only thing to do was to get chicks. Now this decision in itself brought up a whole host of new problems; firstly the chicks would have to have a foster-mother and it seemed that bantams, the time-honoured domestic breed of fowl for this job, were the ideal choice. But even the most phlegmatic of bantams was not going to take kindly to suddenly having a lot of takahe chicks shoved under her, and being told to keep them warm. So the answer was to get takahe eggs and put them under bantams, but then, as somebody pointed out, even the most well-behaved bantam, brimming over with mother love, could hardly be expected to sit tight on the eggs while being bumped and jolted all the way up to and down from Takahe Valley. Gloom and despair settled over the instigators of Operation Takahe and it seemed as if it really was going to be impossible to get any of the birds out of the valley to safety. Then somebody (I suspect Williams himself, for he was so desperately keen on the project) suggested that the bantams be ‘brain-washed’ – that is to say, that a series of bantams be taught to sit tight on a nest of eggs no matter what the circumstances were. It was a long shot but well worth trying, and now began a careful selection of bantams. Out of a hundred or so, a handful were chosen either for their dim-wittedness or their basically phlegmatic characters, and these birds had to undergo what was, to all intents and purposes, a sort of avian assault course. They each had a clutch of chicken eggs to sit on in a cardboard box, and once they were sitting firmly they were then subjected to every form of shock that they might have to cope with on their trip to and from the valley. The boxes were jolted about, they were dropped, they were driven in cars over bumpy roads, taken in trains, speedboats and aeroplanes. Gradually the bantams of weaker moral fibre started to crack, and desert their eggs, so that at the end of the experiment only three were left. Of these, one was chosen for the simple reason that sitting on her eggs in a cardboard box, she had been placed on top of a car and a low branch had swept box, bantam and eggs straight off the roof – a piece of basic training that had not been included in the curriculum. The box, after rolling over and over for several yards, came to a halt the wrong way up, but when it was opened they found the bantam still sitting on her eggs with grim determination – and not one of the eggs was broken, for presumably they had been cushioned against the shock by her body. So this dutiful bantam was chosen for the task of being the most important member of the Operation Takahe expedition.
It must have been a nerve-racking trip for the members of the team. Firstly, they had no means of knowing that a bantam who had behaved so beautifully down below was going to behave in the same way up in the valley, and they all knew that if they failed in their mission there would be such a sentimental public outcry that their chances of having a second attempt would be nil. To their infinite relief and credit, however, the whole thing went off without a hitch. The takahe eggs were obtained, the bantam sat like a rock, and after giving a day or so to make sure, they started down the hazardous, slippery mountainside towards Lake Te Anau. Once they reached the shores of the lake there was a speedboat waiting to rush their precious cargo to the nearest road; here the bantam and eggs were put in a car and dashed down to Picton, there to be loaded on to a plane that flew them to Wellington; then another car ride, and at last the faithful bantam and her eggs were safely installed in the sanctuary at Mount Bruce. After this epic and nerve-racking trip, all the team could do was sit back and wait for the eggs to hatch, while offering up prayers that they would be fertile. In due course, however, two chicks hatched, and the team and the bantam began to look rather smug about the whole business. At last, they felt, they had achieved success. But now a new obstacle reared its ugly head. The bantam foster-mother, of course, treated the takahe chicks exactly as if they were her own. She led them about, scratching up the leafmould vigorously and pecking at whatever tit-bits appeared, fondly imagining that the baby takahes – like bantam chicks – would learn by her example, but the takahes were not bantam chicks and followed their foster-mother about in a bewildered fashion, piping for food but unable to learn the bantam method of feeding. It was obvious that the female takahe feeds her babies, and does not show them how to feed for themselves as the chicken does. Now the problem of feeding them was in itself a task, for it was found that baby takahe do not gape at the mother as normal birds would do; the food is offered in the mother’s beak and the babies take it from there in a sideways manner. At length a satisfactory method was worked out: the takahe chicks were fed on blow flies and similar delicacies impaled on the end of a pencil. With this method of food intake and with the bantam to supply them with mother love and warmth at night, they grew and throve.
Now, quite apart from the rarity of the bird, this story alone would have made us want to try to see a live takahe in its natural surroundings, so the moment we had arrived in Wellington I had applied for permission for us to go into the valley, accompanied, of course, by Brian to make sure we did not pinch any eggs or smuggle a couple of birds out under our coats. At last, to my delight, permission was granted and we set off for Lake Te Anau. As I say, in the old days the only way into the valley was to walk, but now you can do it in comparative comfort. A tiny plane takes you from Te Anau, flies you up the two thousand-odd feet to the valley and lands you on the small lake that covers most of the valley floor. Brian had organised the plane for us but we had twenty-four hours to wait, so we stayed in a palatial hotel on the shores of Te Anau – which looked like a very large and benign Scottish loch – and luxuriated in wonderfully cooked food, excellent wines and first-rate service and accommodation. The average New Zealand hotel is so appalling that we appreciated this government-run hostelry even more than we would have done otherwise.
‘Make the most of this,’ said Brian as I was arguing with the head waiter as to what precise shade of red I wanted my Châteaubriand, ‘it’s going to be really rugged when we get up into the valley.’
Warned by this, I ordered three bottles of wine instead of two.
The following morning there were two things that did not raise our spirits. Firstly, we heard that there was a small party of deer hunters occupying the hut in Takahe Valley and
so there would not be room for Jacquie to come with us, and secondly it seemed doubtful if we should be able to get off ourselves, for black clouds appeared in the sky over Te Anau and the visibility was totally unsuitable for flying in that sort of terrain. All morning we paced the shores of the lake, cursing the weather. By lunchtime it had lifted slightly, but still did not look at all hopeful. Then Brian – who had been keeping in constant touch with the float plane base by phone – appeared with a self-satisfied grin on his face.