Bird expert Colin Miskelly highlights some of the treasures in our egg collection, including those thought to be held only by Te Papa – as well as giant moa eggs, tiny rifleman eggs, and eggs that were acquired during dramatic events in New Zealand’s conservation history.

Digitising our egg collection

Most of the bird eggs held by Te Papa are stored in our off-display research collections. Natural environment photographer Jean-Claude Stahl has recently completed a major project to photograph at least one example of every New Zealand bird species for which we hold eggs. His spectacular images are now published on Collections Online, and (with additional data) on New Zealand Birds Online.

The project has produced data and images of the largest and smallest eggs in the collection, and also the oldest and most recent additions. We have also selected eggs that were collected by notable people, or that are associated with significant events.

Te Papa holds 3,058 bird eggs, or clutches of eggs, of which 1,924 are from New Zealand. The collection includes eggs of 204 species that breed (or have bred) in New Zealand, although for a few species the eggs that we hold were collected offshore (e.g. bird species that are more abundant in Australia than in New Zealand).

The biggest and smallest eggs

The largest egg held by Te Papa is a 240 mm x 178 mm South Island giant moa egg found at Kaikoura in the late 1850s. The smallest New Zealand bird eggs were laid by riflemen and fantails, both of which have eggs that are about 16 mm x 12.5 mm.

The largest egg laid by a living New Zealand bird in the Te Papa collection is a 134 mm x 83 mm egg of a southern brown kiwi (tokoeka), found on Stewart Island in 1969.

The largest egg laid by a flying bird was a 122 mm x 80 mm egg laid by a northern royal albatross, collected on the Chatham Islands in 1974.

The oldest and most recent eggs

The oldest collection date for a New Zealand bird egg held at Te Papa is 1852 for a stout-legged moa egg found by Walter Mantell at Awamoa, North Otago – though note that all moa eggs were laid hundreds of years before they were discovered or rediscovered.

The most recent addition to the collection was a damaged broad-billed prion egg that I found at the type locality for the species (Dusky Sound) in November 2016.

Eggs from extinct species

The collection includes eggs of several species that are now extinct, including the:

• New Zealand quail
• Laughing owl
• Bush wren
• South Island kokako
• Huia
• and the Chatham Island bellbird.

In addition to huia, Te Papa is thought to be the only museum that holds examples of eggs of:

• Campbell Island teal
• Chatham Island taiko (Magenta petrel)
• Vanuatu petrel
• Campbell Island shag
• Bounty Island shag
• Auckland Island rail
• Auckland Island snipe
• Campbell Island snipe
• Reischek’s parakeet
• Codfish Island fernbird
• and Auckland Island pipit.

Attitudes to collecting bird eggs

Attitudes to collecting bird eggs have changed over time, and this is reflected in New Zealand legislation.

From the earliest days, if a bird species was protected in New Zealand, then its eggs were protected under the same legislation. This began with protection of introduced game birds in 1861, with selected native species added from 1865 (wild ducks and pigeons ‘indigenous to the colony’).

Nearly all native bird species and their eggs have been protected since 1907, and all but two species of native birds (spur-winged plover and southern black-backed gull) and their eggs are currently protected under the Wildlife Act.

This means that the egg collections acquired by Te Papa are either very old (mainly pre-1910), or the eggs have been collected by individuals or institutions authorised to do so.

Dramatic egg stories

Many of the eggs and clutches of eggs held by Te Papa have dramatic stories behind their collection. These include the numerous clutches of dunnock, Chatham Island warbler, and Chatham Island tomtit eggs collected by the New Zealand Wildlife Service on Mangere and Rangatira Islands in the Chatham Islands between 1980 and 1987.

The eggs were collected when the team removed host eggs to replace them with dummy eggs during the black robin cross-fostering programme. If the host pair accepted a dummy egg, they would be entrusted with an incredibly precious black robin egg. Black robins reached a low of only five individuals in 1980, but now number more than 250 birds, partly thanks to the tomtits, which proved to be the most effective foster parents. (The programme was continued for several more years by the Department of Conservation, which was created in April 1987.)

More recently, the museum acquired five clutches of New Zealand dotterel eggs from the Department of Conservation, as a result of the Rena oil spill in 2011.

The adult birds on Maketu Spit were caught and held in aviaries until Bay of Plenty beaches were cleaned up and were no longer at risk of further oil washing ashore.

These are all rare modern examples of entire clutches being collected from protected birds. Most of the additions to the Te Papa egg collection in the last 50 years have been single infertile or damaged eggs found by researchers.

Future blogs will explore some of the individuals and institutions who were major contributors to the Te Papa egg collection.

Related blog

What was New Zealand’s first fully protected native bird?