A torrent of Titi - 26th December

We spent last night on the rocks up at Rangatira trig, with amazing views of the surrounding islands, and Woolshed bush and Front Landing, our usual home, at out feet. By the time we got up there it was about 9 pm and as we’d done already some serious walking that day, we were all quite tired. So we made ourselves comfortable in our sleeping bags wearing piles of clothes and even more clothes within easy reach just in case it got cold in the night.

The Skuas eventually got used to us being there and started swooping less frequently. The sun set, in a blaze of colour, behind the North summit. As it was getting dark, I closed my eyes and went almost off to sleep…..until there was a quiet “Whoosh” in the air about 5 metres above me. And another one. Then more and more whooshes and as I opened my eyes I saw hundreds of Titi (also known as muttonbird) flying laps around the rock that we were sleeping on. They are incredible flyers! They are so fast, maneuvering past each other at a nail-biting speed. It was just after dusk and these are birds on a mission. They have been out at sea all day fishing and now it’s time to get themselves safely back to their burrows and feed their chicks before having a few hours sleep and leaving as dawn breaks the next day.

As with so many of the birds that we see here on Rangatira, the Titi nest on the ground so are very vulnerable to introduced predators. Thankfully, yet again, Rangatira is pest free so the Titi are able to breed. The young were a traditional food source for both the Chathams Moriori and still are for the Stewart Island Maori. But are otherwise they are a protected species. I don’t know the collective noun for Titi, but it was a real torrent that evening. We watched the passing parade as it gently got darker and darker and darker.

The next time I woke to see the stars in the sky clearer than ever before (there are absolutely no lights anywhere near), and the next to hear the dawn chorus of the forest birds in the bush way below us. I slept through not only the Titi going back out to sea, but Brigitta having to move her mattress in the middle of the night as a young broad-billed prion fledgling decided to cuddle next to her. Lucky for the prion fledgling our presence on the rock allowed it to live another day.

A broad-billed prion chick - not the one with Brigitta

During a normal night the resident Skuas would have pounced on it and eaten it for breakfast.

I saw the sunrise, and by 8 am we were all awake enough to pack up our bags and mattresses and stumble back down the hill to the hut for a huge pot of coffee and breakfast.

Christmas day adventures with the Christmas Giraffe - 25th December

Merry Christmas! It was yet another beautiful day here (I’m beginning to think that the forecast we get on the mainland of “Rain in the Chatham Islands” is all a big plot to keep mainlanders away from these beautiful islands). We had a bit of nest checking to get done in the morning and then made an executive decision that we were going to the North Summit. As we’re a bit out of the way here, Santa Clause didn’t find us on Rangatira, but we were visited by a very rare Christmas Giraffe, and decided to take him with us on our Christmas adventures. The summit isn’t a bad place for Christmas lunch. Pitt Island stretches out to the west, Star Keys is visible in the distance to the north and the Pyramid in the South. The Skuas were a bit weary and kept a close eye on us, either perching on South Summit in the distance or doing a swoop by to see what we were up to.

As sunscreen can only do so much to protect against sun-burn, we eventually had to abandon the summit and went back to the hut. After we drank a few gallons of water each, there was yet another trip to the rock pools at Whalers Bay for a refreshing dip, again with our visitor.

Then it was roast lamb for supper with a special quiche for the vegetarian and roast potatoes and an apple pie for pudding. Despite never having cooked a roast before, I am glad to say that I have inherited my fathers roast potato gene and we ate really well. I managed to mystify my fellow islanders by insisting on daft hats throughout the meal, with one for the giraffe too of course. Not a German tradition I guess.

And our last adventure for the day was a trip up to the Rangatira Trig, a relatively flat area of rock with some good views, for a Christmas night sleep out. The four of us and our Christmas Giraffe set off just after 8 pm to make sure we got through the bush before dusk, with our mattresses and sleeping bags, all set for our big adventure.

It’s (not) beginning to feel a lot like Christmas - 24th December

It’s Christmas Eve here on the Island though there is no way of telling it without having a calendar on the wall. It is a beautifully sunny day and we had a long and leisurely breakfast on the back deck, trying to avoid the ever present flies. We decided to get all the checking and weighing done this morning again to give us time for frivolity this afternoon. We’re planning a dip in the rock pools at Whalers Bay, followed by some sparkling wine and lounging on the rocks.
And I of course am planning some singing. I love Christmas carols, and hope you’ll join in singing this Rangatira Carol with us. It’s to the tune of 12 days of Christmas, and I’m not writing the whole thing out! You know how it goes;

On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me
12 Kakariki
11 Chathams Petrels
10 Broad Billed Prions
9 Chatham’s warblers
8 Storm petrels
7 Blue penguins
6 Oyster catchers
5 Chathams Snipe
4 Bird researchers
3 Chatham’s tomtits
2 Fierce Skuas
And a black robin in a Ngaio Tree!

Quiz answers

The answers to the quiz from December 18th are here
Black robin = nest C
Black-backed gull = nest H
Blackbird = nest F
CI Oystercatcher = nest B
CI warbler = nest A
Dunnock = nest E
CT tomtit/female = nest G
Snipe = nest D

Four go to the beach - 23rd December

We had an afternoon off yesterday. As many of the chicks have fledged and the nest checking takes much less time these days, if we work hard in the mornings there is less to do in the afternoon. So we took the spare time in the afternoon to go paua hunting in Thinornis Bay. Even though we got there just before low tide, the waves were huge, due to the gale-forced winds during the previous few days. The pauas are big in Thinornis Bay. I’ve never seen paua this big before on the mainland. But as no one except researchers land here on Rangatira, they aren’t fished and have plenty of time to grow.

When we collect them, we get only a few and this leaves a population of adults around to keep the generations going. Paua have planktonic larvae, which means that the larvae get carried around in the ocean current, and it’s possible that the larvae can chemically detect areas of rock that are covered with seaweed to settle on. Seaweed is a paua's favourite food. You can find all three of NZ’s paua species here but we were looking for the black- footed paua. There is a commercial fishery for paua in the Chathams with the meat selling for about $100 per kg! And we’ve all seen their shells in tourist shops and probably have some at home too. They are a valuable resource for the Chatham Islands.


The rock pools here are relatively shallow and quite high up the beach too, so finding paua isn’t something which is necessarily going to get you wet and mucky. That is except for today when the waves were cranking in, covering the rocky platform which a few days ago I was walking around with no fear of wet boots.

The sea can be like that. One day it looks benign and as though you’d love to go for a dip, and the next only the local seals feel comfortable surfing in the waves. But we were careful and triumphantly carried back enough paua for a small feast.

Birthdays and more family updates - 22nd December

It’s Melanie’s Birthday today. After watching “Mama Mia” last night, we woke Mel by singing “Happy Birthday” to her and making her open her present which was wrapped up in the same tape that we use for marking paths and flagging nests. We then had a long and lazy breakfast with field trip pancakes and lots of coffee, so we were a little late getting into the bush this morning.

The first nest I checked this morning was AS08, a tomtit nest which is high up in a clump of Muehlenbeckia. The parents weren’t going back to the nest to feed the chicks immediately, so I waited and eventually two little fledglings came down to the ground to feed too! These are a pair that we haven’t banded shortly before fledging as their nest was out of ladder reach, but it is good to see them flying and feeding.

While we’re on the subject of friends, here is our pre-Christmas update on some of our bird families:

Drusilla’s three chicks have successfully fledged and have been seen taking their first flying lessons in Ikes Bush. Mum and Dad, however, are still very busy feeding the fledglings as they struggle to even pick up their own worms. The adult birds might feed their fledglings for several months after the chicks officially leave the nest.

After their first clutch died we’re hoping that Fast Eddie (the hut tomtit) and his mate will build another nest very soon. I spent an hour yesterday following Eddie, but he wasn’t showing me where his new nest is. “My” tomtit nest, SF01, has a handful of chicks which we will make sure to band before we leave the Island. The female on that nest has been named Agatha and is one feisty bird, telling off everyone who comes to weigh her chicks. Fat Freddie’s mate, Wilma, is also fierce, so we’ve great hopes for her three chicks too.

We’ve lots of robin news, and each time we meet up together for meals we swap which nests have chicks and who might be rebuilding ready for clutch number two. Yesterday Brigitta saw that Gary (so called because his leg bands are Green, metal, also known as Aluminium, Red and Yellow) chicks had fledged and that little Jolina and Silas, named for her niece and nephew, are doing well.

We’re hoping for more eggs and fledglings before we leave, so will keep on going out every day and see what’s new in the forest bird population.

Hurray for insects - December 21st

Thank goodness we don’t have sandflies here! Can you imagine a month or so working in the bush with those wee jobbies biting you every few minutes? It’d be enough to send out a ‘PAN PAN’ to the nearest passing fishing boat to get off the Island.
There are fleas though, everywhere. We do our very best not to get seabird fleas (which are misnamed as they will bite us too if there isn’t a seabird handy) by wearing gaiters in the forest to stop them going up our boots and into our trousers. You do sometimes get bitten though and it is never the very best idea to go anywhere near your sleeping bag in your outside clothes. No one wants to sleep in a flea infested sleeping bag.

We have some other huge, charismatic bugs on Rangatira, which I am slowly getting used to. There are wetas everywhere. Whenever I dig out a seabird burrow after accidentally collapsing it, there are usually several big wetas that scuttle off into the bush looking offended.

 Another weta lives in the tap of our outside water tank. Whenever we try to fill up a large pot of water, the weta gets washed into the pot. This one had the misfortune to be washed into the boiling water that I had heated up for my first shower here. I was terribly nonchalant and fished it out and chucked the carcass out into the bush. It can’t have been more than a day later when another one moved back into the same tap! Weta like living in holes, and a little used tap is a haven for them; until it all goes wrong of course. Weta apparently eat the carcasses of dead seabirds and as there are tonnes of dead seabirds throughout the forest, the wetas would be able to get themselves some good quality protein from this sideline.

The Chatham Islands have over 800 species of insects and on islands like this one they are a very noticeable part of the ecosystem. There are perfectly circular holes in most of the dead branches, which are bored by weevils. And Alex has already told you about the huge spiders which live here too. Thankfully I haven’t met those yet. I might not recover.

And finally, when talking about all things creepy and crawly I must mention the meal worms that we have brought with us from Christchurch. The birds love them and apart from observation and cunning, meal worms are the best bird-finding tools around. Meal worms pupate and eventually turn into beetles if they aren’t used as bird food first.

So, although some days I hate to say it: “Hurray for insects”.