Now, I have told you a lot about the bird population of Rangatira but the human population has some unusual characteristics too – one of these is their habit of falling out of trees. Maybe it doesn’t sound strange but think about it: when was the last time you saw a fully-grown person falling out of a tree? The next question is probably: why does this happen on NZ’s offshore islands? Well, blame the prions.
Broad-billed prion on the forest floor:
Almost a million broad-billed prions come to breed on Rangatira island each year. They fly in from the sea at dusk, crashing head first through the canopy, hurrying to feed their chicks a tasty meal of regurgitated krill. Unfortunately some of them don’t reach the ground. Their wings, so perfectly adapted to acrobatics in southern storms, do not function without a breeze. As soon as they reach the still air of the bush, they are helpless as babies. They cannot flap their wings and hover. They cannot move backwards.
Often, in the morning, we find these birds caught by their necks in a v-shaped branch, or with one foot trapped in a twist of vine or even halfway out of their burrows with a tree-root wrapped around one wing. Sometimes they are too badly injured to survive. But sometimes, even if it requires climbing a very spindley mahoe tree with a pair of secateurs between our teeth, sometimes, we can save them.
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