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 seventeenth blog in the series, Colin describes birds encountered while walking through the treeless landscapes of South Canterbury, from the south bank of the Rakaia River to the former construction town of Twizel in the heart of the McKenzie Basin.
Barely a leaf (or needle)
This entire section traversed the hot, dry, open uplands of South Canterbury – and we aren’t finished with them yet. The week started in cooler conditions, after an unseasonal dump of (February) snow while we overnighted in Methven while ‘crossing’ the Rakaia River.
After exiting Hakatere Conservation Park near Lake Clearwater, we had another enforced diversion around the Rangitata River (137 km by road via Geraldine) before climbing the Two Thumb Range.
We walked through only a single (1 km) transect of forest during the entire week – a pine plantation south of Lake Pukaki. The highest point of the entire Te Araroa Trail (Stag Saddle, 1925 m) was almost entirely bare rock, providing almost no habitat for birds.
Stag Saddle provided our first glimpse of Lake Tekapo and the rest of the McKenzie basin beyond.
The route from Tekapo to Twizel was almost flat, including 23 km on the edge of Tekapo Canal (constructed in the 1970s to carry water to Tekapo B power station on the shore of Lake Pukaki).
Land tenure review
Much of the high country in the Hakatere and Te Kahui Kaupeka Conservation Parks is former Crown-lease land that was used to graze merino sheep in the summer.
High-country land tenure review was a voluntary negotiated process between lease-holders and the Crown (i.e. the Department of Conservation and Land Information New Zealand) that typically resulted in lease-holders purchasing the most productive farmland, and the higher parts of the properties being added to the conservation estate. The process provided much greater recreational access to the South Island high country, but had some perverse environmental outcomes.
New Zealand already has vast areas of mountain tops in public reserves – it is fertile lowlands and valley floors that are the powerhouse of indigenous biodiversity, and that are woefully under-represented in public reserves. These are the very areas that were sold as freehold land, with far fewer constraints on how they are managed compared to when the same land was under a Crown lease. As a result, many thousands of hectares have been over-developed, over-irrigated and over-grazed, with many rare ecosystems and their component species degraded and lost.
But what about the birds?
Yes – I was getting there, but there is depressingly little to say. High-country tenure review may have preserved iconic landscapes, but very few native birds have benefitted. Both the abundance and diversity of birds in high-country tussock is very low, and the communities are dominated by introduced species – Eurasian skylarks | kairaka, yellowhammers | hurukōwhai, dunnocks, and Canada geese | kuihi.
The New Zealand falcon | kārearea is one of the few endemic birds found on these high open landscapes, and some of our fellow trampers were lucky enough to have close encounters of them. However, they are not common here – we saw only three during the week.
Wetland birds
Inland Canterbury is an important breeding area for several rare waders, terns, and gulls that nest on the braided riverbeds and nearby wetlands. However, Te Araroa Trail avoids the large riverbeds where the birds are, and many have already finished breeding and departed by the time most Te Araroa walkers are present at the height of summer.
The large lakes in the McKenzie basin (including Lakes Tekapo and Pukaki) have few birds, but the smaller lakes in Hakatere Conservation Park and alongside Tekapo Canal had greater numbers and diversity, including 64 New Zealand scaup | pāpango and three crested grebes | pūteketeke. However, even the wetland bird communities were dominated by introduced species, including 226 Canada geese | kuihi and 129 mallards | rakiraki.
The nearly-but-not-quite owl
We have yet to see or hear a little owl | ruru nohinohi (another introduced species) from Te Araroa Trail – but one missed being included in the count statistics by only a few minutes. As we were being driven to the trail head on the south bank of the Rangitata River, Gordon noticed one of these small owls sitting in a dead willow tree about 5 km before the carpark beside Bush Stream.
Feral mammals
In addition to counting all the birds of Te Araroa Trail, I have also been counting all the feral mammals seen along the way. Most species are at low density and are secretive during daylight, with the count dominated by hares in high-country tussockland, and rabbits near the lake shores and Tekapo Canal. Two other species added during this section were 23 Himalayan tahr grazing in a subalpine meadow north of Stone Hut in the Two Thumb Range, and four Bennett’s wallabies east of Lake Tekapo.
Bird species added since the previous section
Nil.
Summary statistics for section 16
Cumulative totals for Te Araroa sections completed are given in parentheses.
- Days on the trail = 8 (103)
- Kilometres travelled and surveyed = 187.1 (2,633.7)
- eBird/Atlas checklists completed = 116 (1,464)
- Number of bird species = 42 (105)
- Total birds seen or heard = 2,569 (86,427)
- Most abundant species = yellowhammer | hurukōwhai (228), followed by Canada goose | kuihi (226)
- Most abundant endemic (and native) species = black-billed gull | tarāpuka (151 – mainly in a flock of 147 in Tekapo Village), followed by the native silvereye | tauhou (142) and the endemic paradise shelduck | pūtangitangi (135)
- Most frequent species = yellowhammer | hurukōwhai (44.4 % of checklists), followed by dunnock (37.0 %)
- Most frequent native species = silvereye | tauhou (24.1 % of checklists)
- Most frequent endemic species = New Zealand pipit | pīhoihoi (22.2 % of checklists)
- Endemic bird score = 28
Other blogs in this series
- Every Last Bird – the Birds of Te Araroa Trail
- Birds of Te Araroa 1 – Cape Reinga to Kaitāia
- Birds of Te Araroa 2 – Kaitāia to Kerikeri
- Birds of Te Araroa 3 – Kerikeri to Whangārei Harbour
- Birds of Te Araroa 4 – Whangārei Harbour to Auckland
- Birds of Te Araroa 5 – Auckland to Hamilton
- Birds of Te Araroa 6 – Hamilton to Te Kūiti
- Birds of Te Araroa 7 – Te Kūiti to Taumarunui
- Birds of Te Araroa 8 – Taumarunui to National Park
- Birds of Te Araroa 9 – National Park to Whanganui
- Birds of Te Araroa 10 – Whanganui to Palmerston North
- Birds of Te Araroa 11 – Palmerston North to Wellington
- Birds of Te Araroa 12 – Cook Strait to Havelock
- Birds of Te Araroa 13 – Havelock to St Arnaud
- Birds of Te Araroa 14 – St Arnaud to Boyle Village
- Birds of Te Araroa 15 – Boyle River to Rakaia River
- Birds of Te Araroa 17 – Twizel to Wānaka
- Birds of Te Araroa 18 – Wānaka to the Te Anau Highway
- Birds of Te Araroa 19 – Te Anau Highway to Bluff
- Birds of Te Araroa Trail – Every Last Word
I’m enjoying your frankness Colin, albeit depressing.
Fingers crossed you both make it to Bluff. It’s a tough stroll.
Such a wonderful narrative of your journey. The landscape is certainly one of the characters you are exploring, Papatuanuku, as well as our birdlife. looking forward to your next entry.
Making great progress, Colin & Gordon. Ornithologically, more interesting sections ahead. Go well.
Beautiful scenery – shame about the lack of birds!