On a narrow, winding road with a sharp drop to the Ruatiti Stream far below, we were hugging the cliff face in our Ford Transit campervan when a local ute approached us. As he squeezes past, the driver of the ute stops. Windows are wound down. ‘Are you ok?’ We assure him that we are indeed all right and not tourists who have mislaid State Highway One. ‘Just doing a bird survey’ we say. He seems interested, so we explain about the atlas project, and he tells us about the Blue Ducks that are raising three young after nesting in an old culvert on the station. ‘Look,’ he continues ‘why don’t you go up to the house and talk to my wife. She’ll tell you all about the birds’.

So it is that we shortly find ourselves joining Helen, their three children home for the holidays, and the station hands in the homestead kitchen, where a colossal morning tea is spread out. We came away well fed with a full list for the atlas sheet, some good stories, and a heightened appreciation of this remote corner of the North Island.

We are surprised at how many people stop to ask if we are lost. Once it was a kindly guy driving a laden logging truck and trailer. Perhaps some locals are just checking us out. It is often a good opportunity to ask in return our stock question, ‘Have you heard any Moreporks lately?’ This is generally the only way to record this species.

Most people know the calls of Morepork, and many are knowledgeable about their local birds. We asked one couple in the Awakino area if we could access a swamp on their land. They are pleased to learn that the swamp contains Spotless Crake, a species new to them. It always pays to travel with a tape recorder handy. In all but the smallest raupo swamps in the central North Island, John usually gets a response to taped calls from Spotless Crake. Unfortunately these wetlands are decreasing in number as more and more farmland is drained.

Taped calls are also useful for locating Fernbird, and we are hopeful of turning up more Marsh Crakes by this means, though the three we have come across so far have been from sightings or unsolicited calls. Atlassing has already shown that there are more Marsh Crakes in the central North Island than we were aware of – at least four sites that were not recorded in the first atlas.

One of the frustrations of atlassing is the number of forestry and farm roads marked on the map, which turn out to have limited or no public access. The reason is explained when, in the Ongarue district, we meet a man who is updating all the Department of Survey and Land Information maps. On his car bonnet he spreads out big aerial photographs on which all roads, public and private, are clear to see. All are recorded on the maps, including those of the AA.

He is able to assist with another dilemma. We had been trying to reach the last square to be atlassed in the Waikato Region by walking old forestry tracks, as there is no road access into the square. We had come close to the magic 6280 northing, and explored some beautiful bird-filled native forest, but all the tracks would veer away. Our new friend now spread out extra-large-scale maps that show that there are indeed no tracks entering the square. Eventually we access it through farmland to the south.

There is a public road that we definitely do not recommend for campervans. The Old Motu Coach Road winds down precipitous bush ridges in the Raukumara Range to emerge 70km later at Omarumutu in the Bay of Plenty. Road-watching takes precedence over birdwatching. Holding back overhanging vegetation we manoeuvre around tree-falls, while hoping not to meet any oncoming vehicle on this steep, narrow, twisting old highway. We only vaguely register the calls of Tui, Tomtit, Whitehead, Long-tailed Cuckoo, and the whirr of a New Zealand Pigeon in flight. We recover over a late lunch when we reach Toatoa on the valley floor, and are rewarded by the sound of Weka calling.

Atlassing is not only about encounters with rare birds. More often than not it is the recording of common introduced species – House Sparrow, Myna, Blackbird, Starling, etc – time and time again. Tedious? Not always. Camped by courtesy of the caretaker at Eastwoodhill Arboretum in Hawkes Bay, we are delighted and amused by young Australian Magpies at play in a grassy field. They roll over and over like puppies, hanging on to their opponents by a leg or a wing. Next morning we are woken by their warbling to blue skies and eucalypt trees. It could be a scene in Australia, but for the New Zealand Pigeon perched in one of the gums.

Some days it is what you don’t see rather than what you do. Where have all the Pukeko disappeared to when they were all over the paddocks last time we were there? Why is one square alive with Goldfinches, when the next one seems to have only Yellowhammers?

Sightings of some species require an element of luck – being in the right place at the right time – New Zealand Falcon is one. It is always a thrill to happen on one of these little raptors. We are privileged to have watched a score or more over the first four years of atlassing. Some are hurtling after prey – Pipits in the Kaimanawas and at French Pass, a New Zealand Pigeon in the Rangitoto Range – others are keenly observing the scene from vantage points. One in the Hawkswood Range was most obliging, perching in a small kanuka digesting some insect only four metres away from us. I got out the camera, changed lenses, and took several photos. It flew off when it was ready some twenty minutes later.

For some species such as Cattle Egret, the van becomes a good bird hide. You can also set up the telescope inside, which is useful in gusty weather. Ornithological reference books are all there ready to hand.

With almost a year of atlassing to go we are looking forward to more encounters of both the human and bird kind.

STELLA and JOHN ROWE

In this the modern day and age, what birder honestly would think that they might resurrect from presumed extinction a species of New Zealand bird? Surely, the heroic era of G.B.Orbell and the Takahe rediscovery is gone? In fact, this assumption may be true for land birds, but look to the oceans and the potential, albeit slim, is still there for seabirds. Seabird research continues to find out how much remains unknown.

One New Zealand seabird presumed extinct is the barely known black-and-white New Zealand Storm Petrel. Evidence of this form of storm petrel is restricted to just three skins collected in the 1800s: one preserved at the British Museum of Natural History, Tring, and two at the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris. Recent studies of these skins categorise them in the family Oceanites, with species status under the provisional scientific name O. maorianus. It is interesting to note that storm petrel bones unearthed by workers researching New Zealand’s fossil birds also have been ascribed to the family Oceanites and are tentatively being ascribed to the New Zealand Storm Petrel. These bones may be further evidence of the species. One thing is for certain though, 150 years or thereabouts is a very long time for a species to be missing.

On 25 January 2003, a Wrybill Birding Tours pelagic trip with 12 participants led by Brent Stephenson and Sav Saville encountered a black-and-white storm petrel near the Mercury Islands, off the Coromandel Peninsula. The bird circled the boat for about one minute. Brent hastily ran off a short series of photographs. Three out of four observers who got onto the bird thought they saw a black belly stripe. The feet projected beyond the tail tip. The only reasonable conclusion on identification at the time was Black-bellied Storm Petrel and it was logged as such.

After the event, Brent’s digital images revealed information about the storm petrel not seen in the field. Most surprising was the lack of a black central belly stripe. with the central belly an unmarked white. Furthermore, the undertail coverts were white, not black. There were streaks on the flanks and undertail coverts. The breast band was not clear-cut, but had black-brown ‘bleeding’ projections onto the white belly. These characteristics are nothing like those of Black-bellied Storm Petrel.

Not surprisingly there was growing debate about the identity of the 25 January storm petrel. Possibilities seemed to be a white-bellied form of Wilson’s Storm Petrel, a White-bellied Storm Petrel, or a subspecies or an aberrant form of Black-bellied Storm Petrel. None of these fitted the photographic evidence. At one stage Alan Tennyson introduced the ‘crazy idea’ that the bird might have been a New Zealand Storm Petrel. This ‘crazy idea’ slowly became the preferred one, as Brent’s images of the live bird were repeatedly compared to Ian’s images of the three skins. Eventually, it was decided to widen the debate through the web and raise the flabbergasting possibility in Saville et al (2003) that their bird may have been the first known sighting for about 150 years of the presumed extinct New Zealand Storm Petrel.

Initially, opinions amongst Australian and New Zealand seabirders about the validity of the proposed identification ranged the spectrum from dismissive to confident. After months of Internet discussion more seabirders were persuaded toward the confident camp, or at least away from the dismissive camp. Yet, everything hinged on one sighting and a few understandably hurried photographs. Ultimately, nothing would be resolved without a future well-documented sighting incorporating quality photographs. How long might this take? Would there ever be another sighting? The standing of the defiant observers hung on chance. Their painful wait, however, was to be a surprisingly short one.

On 17 November 2003, two visiting seabird enthusiasts from the UK, Bob Flood and Bryan Thomas, chartered a boat from Sandspit, near Warkworth and steamed out to two kilometres north of Little Barrier Island. Their main purpose was to watch close-up and photograph the grey-brown White-faced Storm Petrel. They chummed whilst drifting in a brisk westerly wind, waiting for storm petrels to be drawn in by smell. Storm petrels soon arrived as expected, but surprisingly they were all black-and-white.

At least ten and possibly 20 of these black-and-white storm petrels were seen in a period of an hour and a half. Many of them fed over the oily slick created by the chum, but this formed up-wind and directly into the sunlight. Nevertheless, Bryan shot a series of photographs as the storm petrels approached the boat and Bob took some video footage.

Dark markings were seen on the belly although they were hard to position, and the feet projected well beyond the tail tip. These and other features excluded identification as White-bellied Storm Petrel. Thus, the birds were assumed to be Black-bellied Storm Petrels. There was no other option according to the field guides. The wings were narrower and more pointed than expected and a clear view of a black belly stripe was not attained, but these apparent and surprising anomalies were put down to lack of observer experience with Black-bellied Storm Petrel.

That evening back at the digs Bryan downloaded his digital images to laptop. He noticed that the dark markings on the bellies of the storm petrels were in fact streaks and called to Bob to take a look. With a series of digital images and a laptop fully equipped with software to explore them, the two soon realised that the storm petrels were not Black-bellied.

Luckily, both had read in passing Saville et al’s (2003) article about the putative New Zealand Storm Petrel seen in January 2003 and the skins collected in the 1800s. As far as Bob and Bryan could remember, their storm petrels looked just like the photographs of the live bird and the skins. A web version of the article was consulted next day and vague memories became hardened facts. They found themselves having to believe the unbelievable. There could be no doubt. The New Zealand Storm Petrel is not extinct!

Bob and Bryan immediately emailed Brent, Ian and Sav with the dramatic news. Many more emails were exchanged full of expletives and superlatives best not repeated here. Celebrations ensued as if all five were party to a syndicate lottery win.

A full account including five quality photographs of the 17 November sightings was documented in Flood (2003). This published confirmation swung opinion amongst seabirders across the globe and now there is a near international consensus view that supports our conclusion. BirdLife International has recategorised the New Zealand Storm Petrel from extinct to critically endangered. A major monograph on Albatrosses and Petrels by Dr Michael Brookes (curator at the University of Cambridge) due out this year will now include the New Zealand Storm Petrel as probably a full species, and another such monograph in preparation by Hadoram Shirihai will include it as a full species. We hope that the New Zealand Rare Birds Committee will formally accept our records and that subsequently the Department of Conservation will embrace a project to establish the status of the New Zealand Storm Petrel and to preserve it.

This amazing story is not complete, however, without a final word about the means of our rediscovery. Digital camerawork in the field captured details of our storm petrels that the eye could not make out; or perhaps the mind found impossible to believe. Whichever, there is no doubt that our rediscovery of the New Zealand Storm Petrel is nothing other than a digital resurrection.

References

Saville, S., Stephenson, B., & Southey, I. 2003. A possible sighting of an ‘extinct’ bird – the New Zealand Storm-petrel. Birding World 16: 173-75.
Flood, R.L. 2003. The New Zealand Storm-petrel is not extinct. Birding World 16: 479-482.

BOB FLOOD, SAV SAVILLE, IAN SOUTHEY, BRENT STEPHENSON, and BRYAN THOMAS

The second Australasian Ornithological Conference was held at the Australian National University in Canberra, 10-13 December 2003. The first was held in Bathurst, NSW and the third will be held in New Zealand, probably in Blenheim. These conferences are held every second year, and are hosted by both Birds Australia and OSNZ with both societies represented on the organising committees. Paul Scofield and I were the OSNZ members on the Canberra organising committee. In turn Birds Australia will appoint two Australians onto the Blenheim committee. AOCs are scientific meetings and have a very different role to the less formal scientific days held by both OSNZ and Birds Australia, and Birds Australia’s annual congress. They provide a regular forum for ornithologists to meet and present the latest research on the birds of our part of the world.

It was a very full programme with plenty for the 220 attendees to do. During the three days on which papers were presented, three plenary lectures (one by Trevor Worthy), 77 other oral presentations and 22 poster papers were on offer. In addition to Trevor Worthy’s plenary there were 10 other presentations by New Zealanders. The New Zealand presenters included researchers from three universities (Massey, Victoria and Lincoln) and three museums (Te Papa, Canterbury and Otago). Most other presenters were from Australia although researchers from Britain and Korea gave papers while the audience included delegates from several other countries.

In addition to the presentations there were early morning bird walks on campus and in the nearby botanical gardens, a birding trip to Canberra parks, social functions and between sessions the foyer and lunch venues were abuzz with bird talk. Birds Australia and CSIRO had interesting displays showing some of their recent and current ornithological studies and some of their latest scientific publications. Few delegates, it seemed, did not find some essential bird books to buy from the extensive range on offer at Andrew Isles bookstall outside the lecture rooms.

The papers spanned a wide range of ornithological interests including biogeography, taxonomy, breeding biology, mating systems, habitats, distributions, landscape ecology and foraging. Most papers had an ecological or conservation focus. I find meetings with the Australians particularly interesting. Although the Australian and New Zealand bird faunas have a lot in common, the habitats and predator guilds in the two countries are very different. We can learn a lot about the ways our birds have adapted to the unique New Zealand environment by comparing the ecology of our birds with those in Australia. The two countries have a lot to learn from one another. For instance, Australian ecologists are streaks ahead of us when it comes to landscape ecology, whereas New Zealanders have taken a more pragmatic approach to solving conservation problems than have the Australians. Ornithology could greatly benefit from greater trans-Tasman flow of people and ideas.

Thanks to the Australians on the organising committee, Penny Olsen, Barry Baker, Nick Nicholls and Denis Saunders, for it was they that did most of the hard work required to make the conference happen.

KERRY-JAYNE WILSON