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 nineteenth blog in the series, Colin describes birds encountered while walking through Motatapu Station to Arrowtown then Queenstown, then up the Greenstone Track and past the Mavora Lakes to State Highway 49.
Negotiated access
From Glendhu Bay at the southern end of Lake Wānaka, Te Araroa Trail rises over the rugged ridges of the Motatapu Track through to the relics of Macetown – a former goldmining settlement near Arrowtown. The 32 km Motatapu Track and the three huts along its route were a negotiated outcome of the sale of the pastoral leases of Motatapu Station and the adjacent Mt Soho Station into foreign ownership in 2004. The track and huts were constructed by the new leaseholders (Soho Properties Ltd) and were gifted to the Crown (to be managed by the Department of Conservation) when completed in 2008.
From the remains of Macetown, Te Araroa Trail crosses the 13 km Big Hill Track, which was the historic route linking Macetown and Arrowtown.
Ahead of the game
Soon after leaving Arrowtown, Te Araroa Trail passes through the golfing resort of Millbrook. We again found ourselves caught up in the preparation for a major sporting event, with the New Zealand Open due to tee off the following day.
Te Araroa Trail then links with sections of the Queenstown Cycle Trail past Lake Hayes and along the Kawerau and Shotover Rivers to Frankton before following the Frankton Walkway around the edge of Lake Wakatipu to the centre of Queenstown. Then stops.
Greenstone Track and Mavora Lakes
Te Araroa walkers have to find their way from Queenstown to where the trail resumes 80 km by road away on the opposite side of Lake Wakatipu, just north of the mouth of the Greenstone River. After weeks of open-country walking, we appreciated the cool shade of beech forest for about 20 km up the Greenstone Track before entering more grassland at the low saddle separating Otago and Southland Provinces.
The two Mavora Lakes sit in a long valley west of the southern arm of Lake Wakatipu. From the saddle, Te Araroa Trail follows the Mararoa River south, past the lakes, for more than 70 km to the Te Anau to Mossburn Highway (SH94). Here we witnessed a piece of rural Kiwiana, with the Tux Sheep Dog Trials underway on two adjacent hill slopes.
Fans of the show will know that the Huntaways have to ‘speak up’ as they guide their mob of sheep up a steep tussock slope, while the Collies eye-ball their mob through white-washed gates on gentler slopes.
Coot tūrangawaewae
Lake Hayes has a unique claim to fame as the first site in New Zealand where Australian coots were found breeding. They had been recorded as occasional vagrants in Aotearoa since 1875, but did not establish as a (native) breeding species until they were found breeding at Lake Hayes in 1958. We saw six coots on the portion of Lake Hayes visible from Te Araroa Trail and ten on Lake Wakatipu.
Like many other recent self-introduced bird species, the Australian coot has yet to be gifted a te reo Māori name. Other examples include spur-winged plover, black-fronted dotterel, and barn owl.
Lake Hayes also held a healthy population of Australasian crested grebes | pūteketeke. We saw 43 (including 13 chicks), substantially more than the 17 that we saw on Lake Wānaka.
The carefully waterscaped ponds in Millbrook held only a few waterfowl, but they were habituated to people, allowing close views of six Australasian shovelers | kuruwhengi, five grey teal | tētē-moroiti, and one coot. All the lakes in the section had good numbers of New Zealand scaup | pāpango, which was the most abundant endemic bird of the section (though the flocks of 35 and 37 flying south over the Mararoa River likely included some or all of the 52 seen on the Mavora Lakes the previous day).
A wee gem of a bird
The cold beech forests of the Greenstone Track and beside the Mavora Lakes had a good diversity of endemic forest birds – thinly spread but occasionally in dense patches. There were at least a dozen kākā near Greenstone Hut at dawn, and we had great views of at least ten yellow-crowned parakeets | kākāriki beside South Mavora Lake.
The feature bird for this blog is a very special bird indeed – the rifleman | tītitipounamu. It is Aotearoa New Zealand’s smallest bird, and its te reo Māori name likens it to a tiny shard of pounamu – an apt description of the rich green dorsal plumage of the adult male.
In addition to being tiny and gorgeous, the New Zealand wren lineage (which includes rifleman and rock wren | pīwauwau) may have a deeper whakapapa within Aotearoa than any other bird. They are so distantly related to all other songbirds on the planet that they may well have been present on the continent of Zealandia (of which Aotearoa New Zealand is the emergent portion) when it broke free from Gondwana about 80 million years ago. The ancestors of all other endemic land birds (including flightless species like kiwi, moa, adzebills, kākāpo and takahē) are thought to have flown here across the ever-widening Tasman Sea (or possibly via Antarctica and the proto Southern Ocean).
Where are the chukor?
This blog series has been about birds seen or heard from Te Araroa Trail. I have so far avoided featuring birds that I looked for and failed to find. But this one puzzles me.
The chukor is a Himalayan partridge that was introduced to the South Island as a gamebird. It is supposed to be widely distributed in the dry uplands of Canterbury and Otago. Te Araroa Trail passes through hundreds of kilometres of such habitat – but I never saw or heard a chukor. They must either be very rare or have specific habitat requirements that do not occur on the trail. Or maybe both.
Bird species added since the previous section
Nil.
Summary statistics for section eighteen
Cumulative totals for Te Araroa sections completed are given in parentheses.
- Days on the trail = 7 (116)
- Kilometres travelled and surveyed = 182.9 (2,985.7)
- eBird/Atlas checklists completed = 100 (1654)
- Number of bird species = 45 (107)
- Total birds seen or heard = 3,171 (92,994)
- Most abundant species = starling | tāringi (572, largely due to an early afternoon murmuration of about 450 birds along Mavora Lakes Road), followed by the endemic New Zealand scaup │ pāpango (272)
- Most frequent species = chaffinch | pahirini (55.2 % of checklists)
- Most frequent native species = silvereye | tauhou (50 % of checklists)
- Most frequent endemic species =bellbird | korimako (36.5 % of checklists), followed by tomtit | ngirungiru (35.4 %)
- Endemic bird score = 41
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 16 – Rakaia River to Twizel
- Birds of Te Araroa 17 – Twizel to Wānaka
- Birds of Te Araroa 19 – Te Anau Highway to Bluff
- Birds of Te Araroa Trail – Every Last Word
It’s a big ask for walkers to find their way from Queenstown to the other side of Lake Wakatipu. It’s also mindblowing that land has been sold into overseas ownership, instead of to Te Waipounamu’s main iwi, Kai Tahu.
Thank you for your reflection on the Australian birds- some of whom still do not have a Māori name. This is another matter that could be brought up with Kai Tahu- who have carefully named types of greenstone- pounamu.
Thank you too, for the well selected birds to illustrate your journey- definitely taonga!
Look forward to your next blog.