One morepork, two moreporks

You sometimes have to smile at the confusion that can result from misguided attempts to display cultural sensitivity.

Many New Zealanders (me included) long ago dropped the “s” from the plural form of Maori names and words, since there’s no “s” in the Maori language. Hence Maoris became Maori, tuis became tui, pauas became paua and so forth – this despite a valid argument that as long as the words were being used in English, the English practice of adding the “s” should be followed.

Where it starts to get a bit silly is when people become so locked into the habit of dropping the “s” that they reflexively start doing it with non-Maori words too. There’s an example in a story about native birds in today’s Dominion Post, which quotes a Te Papa bird expert as saying that “morepork were common around Wellington”.

Hello? Morepork is an English word (onomatopoeic, since you ask – the same bird is found in Tasmania, where it’s called the mopoke). Ergo, the same practice should be followed as with the plurals of other English bird names – for example, thrushes, seagulls, hawks. So, moreporks and fantails, though not tuis and wekas – or rurus or piwakawakas, come to that. 

Because the morepork in this instance was mentioned in the context of birds that are commonly known by their Maori names, either the bird man or the reporter (I don't know which, because the bird man was quoted using reported speech) apparently couldn't see the distinction.

The nest outside my window

Over the past few months I have observed, through my office window at home, a small miracle unfolding – not once, but three times.

I look out on a garden that consists mainly of native pseudopanax trees. Early in spring one of these trees was chosen by a Mr and Mrs Thrush – I never got to know their first names – as the perfect site for a nest.

As the nest began to take shape, the birds suddenly realised their proximity to a space inhabited daily by a human (the nest being barely a metre from my window). I could sense them wondering whether it was worth continuing. But they must have decided I looked okay, because they duly completed the nest and produced a clutch of eggs.

I was worried about cats raiding the nest, as has happened here before, so gave nature a helping hand by sprinkling citronella oil on the ground around the base of the tree in the hope that it might serve as a deterrent.

I subsequently enjoyed a box seat as Mr and Mrs Thrush hatched and raised their brood. As they have since repeated this feat twice, I have become familiar with the pattern.

Several things strike me as remarkable. The first is the uncanny, instinctive understanding between the two parents as to how the work is divvied up: who’s going to sit on the nest and who’s going to head off in search of a feed. This was all resolved, at least as far as I could tell, without any marital bickering.

But even more astonishing was the speed with which the eggs hatched and the chicks matured to the point where they were able to fly off. I didn’t keep a log, but the time lapse between the point when I first saw the chicks’ heads jutting above the perimeter of the nest – and always remaining absolutely still when their parents were absent, presumably so as not to attract the attention of predators – seemed to be no longer than a couple of weeks. I can only conclude the worms around here contain  steroids.

I would see the chicks’ beaks outstretched as they waited for Mum and Dad to return from their latest foraging trip. Within days they would be standing unsteadily, flapping their inchoate wings. Then the more adventurous of them would be teetering around the edge of the nest, impatient to fly. I marvelled that none of them fell.

Then one morning I would come into my office, look through the window and see the nest was empty. The birds had flown.

The first time this happened, I thought that was that. But the parents went on to raise two more sets of chicks in the same nest. The last ones took to the wing only a couple of days ago, by which time the nest was looking distinctly ragged and well-used. An accountant would probably say it had been well and truly amortised.

I’ve heard of some bird species producing three lots of chicks in a season, but don’t know whether these particular thrushes were exceptionally fecund.

I just hope magpies don’t decide to try it on too. They’re intolerable enough during the nesting season, dive bombing anyone who comes near (and especially anyone wearing lycra and riding a bike, for whom they reserve special malice). If magpies decided to raise several lots of chicks rather than just one, the mayhem would continue for months.

Anyway, I have observed a marked increase in the number of thrushes in our garden. Presumably the ones I see picking at the fallen plums on our back lawn are the products of the nest outside my window.

I hope they stick around. I like birds (I’ve become particularly attached to a pair of California quail that warily roam around our section each day), but I particularly like thrushes. They’re handsome birds and they have a beautiful song.

I like them a lot more than blackbirds, which are as thick as thieves around our place. Blackbirds sing beautifully too, but they also have a raucous alarm call that irritates the hell out of me. I wish the bloody things would understand that this is my property and that I’m entitled to walk around without them noisily squawking in panic every time I disturb them.

They crap on our back deck, too, even though it’s covered. I’m sure they do it just to piss me off.

And now for something completely different

Owning a property that backs on to a council reserve full of exotic trees, as I do, has its disadvantages. It means the spouting gets choked with dead leaves every autumn and I have to clamber gingerly along the edge of the roof to clear them. They pile up on the lawns too, in such quantity that I have to pile the trailer high with sack loads of leaves – mostly from elms, but with a smattering of oak leaves too – and take them to the compost pile at the tip. There are far too many for our own compost heaps to accommodate.

But having so many trees around has its compensations. They give us privacy, they protect us from the southerly and they provide an attractive backdrop to the house, which was one of the reasons we bought the property. And most of all there are the birds.

I have to confess my enthusiasm for the local birdlife isn’t always shared by my wife. They scratch out her seedlings, gorge on our plums and grapes, and crap all over the back deck. Notwithstanding this inconvenience, which I unsympathetically categorise as minor, I think the birds are marvellous.

The most visible permanent residents are blackbirds and thrushes. I’m ashamed to say that as a kid I would stalk blackbirds with a slug gun and found them incredibly wary – a blackbird was the ultimate kill. (My father approved because the birds plundered his apple trees.) But the blackbirds around here are engagingly tame and hop around me with insouciance even when I’m using the rowdy motormower. I guess they have learned from experience that human activity disturbs insects, affording an easy feed. One cocky blackbird in particular is always on the scene when there’s digging being done.

Mallard ducks sometimes nest in the garden and we are visited every day by starlings, which I regard as among the least interesting birds – dull to look at and, unlike the blackbird and thrush, totally lacking in musical charm. But even foraging starlings have their fascination, marching in groups across the lawn with almost military precision. They're welcome to every grass grub they can get.

We have chaffinches and silvereyes in abundance, and yellowhammers. Sparrows too, of course.

A young chaffinch startled me a couple of weeks ago when it crashed into the side of my head as I was having a cup of tea on the deck. It bounced off me onto the table in front of me, where it stood for several seconds looking at me with an expression of indignation, as if it was my bloody fault for sitting there, before regaining its composure and flying off, doubtless to rejoin its anxious mum.

There are greenfinches too. At least I think it’s a greenfinch that takes up a position in one of our pittosporums at certain times of the year and announces the start of the day with its extraordinarily loud but not unpleasant twittering. The reason I can’t be sure of its identity is that it seems a shy and furtive bird that hides amid the foliage and disappears if I come anywhere near.

Like the putative greenfinch, other species come and go according to the time of year. We normally have a noisy resident tui population but they have been absent in recent weeks, possibly taking advantage of the warm weather to migrate to the Tararuas. My three-year-old grandson recognises the tui’s song instantly but can’t get the pronunciation quite right, calling it a chewy bird – so that’s what the tui is called now at our place. (We’ve also adopted his habit of referring to the supermarket as the stupid market, which we consider pretty perceptive for a kid that age.)

A morepork (ruru) is an occasional lodger in the reserve. It was a permanent inhabitant for a long time but now seems to visit intermittently; I heard him (her?) only last night. Kingfishers (kotare) appear now and again too, their sharp, distinctive call usually being heard before they are seen. A much rarer visitor was the large shag – I’m not sure which species – that we suspect devoured our goldfish a couple of years ago. (It did us a favour, in a way. We were mildly concerned about the goldfish pond because of our two small grandsons, but once the fish had gone we filled it in.)

Fantails (piwakawaka) are ever-present, as they are in many urban gardens. On a sunny morning a few weeks ago, one fluttered into my office after I had thrown one of the two sash windows wide open. I opened the other window and left the room, hoping the bird would find its own way out – but when I came back I saw, to my consternation, that it had trapped itself in the narrow space between the two panes. By carefully manoeuvring the upper and lower windows while simultaneously making what I thought were soothing noises, I eventually managed to free it – but I wouldn’t mind betting the experience shaved a few days off its life expectancy.

Incidentally, I have heard that the Maori regard the fantail as a harbinger of death – but as you can see, I’m still here. I hope I’m not tempting fate by saying this.

Anyway, what prompted all this rambling about birds was that today my wife, who doesn’t normally get excited about the avian world, called me to the French doors in the dining room. “Aren’t those quail?” she asked, pointing to the far side of the lawn. And dammit, she was right – two California quail were cautiously making their way through the undergrowth.

That was a pleasant surprise, since I’ve not seen quail around here before and wouldn’t have expected them in a built-up area. I just hope the neighbourhood cats don’t get them.

Now I’m waiting for my first kereru, or better still, a bellbird. But I’m not holding my breath.