Between November 2023 and March 2024, Natural History curator Colin Miskelly is walking the length of Aotearoa New Zealand on Te Araroa Trail – counting every bird seen or heard along the way. In this eighth blog in the series, Colin describes birds encountered between Te Kūiti and Taumarunui.
The Timber Trail
Te Araroa Trail takes two bulges to the east in the central North Island. The northern bulge is the arc of the Timber Trail, which runs from Pureora in the north to Ongarue in the south.
At 86 km long, the Timber Trail is similar in length to Ninety Mile Beach, and takes three or four days to walk. The Timber Trail is mainly used by mountain-bikers. However, after day one, we found we were out of phase with the bikers, and encountered only three riders in 39 km of walking on day two, and did not see any riders on our 18 km final day.
The Timber Trail starts in the majestic uncut podocarp forest at Pureora, but most of its length follows tramlines that were used to extract the rimu, tōtara, and mātai that was used to build New Zealand’s town, cities, bridges and fencelines.
Te Araroa Trail largely follows the Timber Trail for its full length, apart from a 3 km diversion over the 1165 m summit of Mt Pureora, which the cyclists pedal around.
Walking rural landscapes
It takes two days to reach the Timber Trail by foot from Te Kūiti, with Te Araroa Trail following the Mangaokewa River gorge for 1.5 days before striking east to Pureora.
The Mangaokewa River Track passes through native forest initially, then emerges into northern King Country sheep and beef farms.
The last 9 km of the Timber Trail passes through farmland, before linking with the Ongarue Back Road to follow the east bank of the Ongarue River through mixed farmland to Taumarunui, about 25 km away.
For most of this distance, the Te Araroa Trail runs alongside the Auckland to Wellington railway line, which also follows the Ongarue River.
The first falcons of the trail
We heard then saw our first New Zealand falcon | kārearea since leaving Cape Reinga on Day 39, in the Mangaokewa gorge. Falcons are very rare in the northern North Island, and we had seen 146 swamp harriers | kāhu before we saw a kārearea. Where I live (in central Wellington) the ratios are reversed – I see about 50 kārearea for every kāhu.
We had a further five kārearea sightings on the Timber Trail, and one along Ongarue River. On three of these occasions, the falcons were attacking kāhu, and we heard their strident calls before witnessing their spectacular aerial battles.
New Zealand’s smallest bird
The climb over Mt. Pureora took us through stunted subalpine forest festooned with mosses and lichens. It was here that I saw the first riflemen | tītitipounamu of the Te Araroa Trail (a pair) – a species that we did not see elsewhere on the Timber Trail.
A green gem
Our first native parakeets of Te Araroa Trail were a few yellow-crowned parakeets | kākāriki at the Ngaherenga Campsite at the start of the Timber Trail (Pureora). We eventually had two dozen observations of them – mainly their chattering calls from high in the canopy, but one of the suspension bridges gave us a great view of three in the top of a tall tōtara tree.
Birds of the Timber Trail
The diverse and abundant native forest bird community was a highlight of the Timber Trail – the result of a fortuitous combination of extensive good habitat, cold winters (to suppress the numbers of introduced predators), and effective pest control.
Eight of the nine most abundant species along forested sections of the Timber Trail were native species, led by whitehead | pōpokotea (473 birds), tomtit | miromiro (179), and bellbird | korimako (143). The introduced chaffinch | pahirini came in fourth with 122 birds.
Other notable endemic birds of the Timber Trail included 99 North Island robins | toutouwai, 47 long-tailed cuckoos | koekoeā, 46 kākā, and 24 kererū | New Zealand pigeons. The high number of koekoeā heard and seen was undoubtedly due to the abundance of pōpokotea, which are the North Island brood hosts for this large cuckoo.
Bird species added since the previous section
Yellow-crowned parakeet | kākāriki, New Zealand falcon | kārearea, rifleman | tītitipounamu, common redpoll.
Summary statistics for section seven
Cumulative totals for Te Araroa sections completed are given in parentheses.
- Days on the trail = 6 (43)
- Kilometres travelled and surveyed = 170.1 (1,116.6)
- eBird/Atlas checklists completed = 95 (614)
- Number of bird species = 45 (93) (updated by 3 nocturnal species)
- Total live birds seen or heard = 5816 (48,522)
- Most abundant species = chaffinch | pahirini (674)
- Most abundant native species = whitehead | pōpokotea (496)
- Most frequent species = chaffinch | pahirini (92.2 % of checklists), followed by Eurasian blackbird | manu pango (82.2 %)
- Most frequent native species = grey warbler | riroriro (80 % of checklists), followed by New Zealand fantail | pīwakawaka (72.2 %)
- Endemic bird score = 40
Other blogs in this series
- Birds of Te Araroa 19 – Te Anau Highway to Bluff
- Birds of Te Araroa 18 – Wānaka to the Te Anau Highway
- Birds of Te Araroa 17 – Twizel to Wānaka
- Birds of Te Araroa 16 – Rakaia River to Twizel
- Birds of Te Araroa 15 – Boyle River to Rakaia River
- Birds of Te Araroa 14 – St Arnaud to Boyle Village
- Birds of Te Araroa 13 – Havelock to St Arnaud
- Birds of Te Araroa 12 – Cook Strait to Havelock
- Birds of Te Araroa 11 – Palmerston North to Wellington
- Birds of Te Araroa 10 – Whanganui to Palmerston North
- Birds of Te Araroa 9 – National Park to Whanganui
- Birds of Te Araroa 8 – Taumarunui to National Park
- Birds of Te Araroa 6 – Hamilton to Te Kūiti
- Birds of Te Araroa 5 – Auckland to Hamilton
- Birds of Te Araroa 4 – Whangārei Harbour to Auckland
- Birds of Te Araroa 3 – Kerikeri to Whangārei Harbour
- Birds of Te Araroa 2 – Kaitāia to Kerikeri
- Birds of Te Araroa 1 – Cape Reinga to Kaitāia
- Every Last Bird – the Birds of Te Araroa Trail
Related blogs
Cool nice photos