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Return of the Titi Bird  Aorangi-Awarua trustee Richard Steedman points out features of the Makirikiri Tarns to other members of the trust board during a visit earlier this year. The trust administers covenant land adjoining the Ruahine Forest Park and partners the Department of Conservation in the 57km Te Potae Awarua stoat trapline.
Everyone knows that mutton birds hang out in the deep south and not in North Island bush country many kilometres from the sea. So what would they be doing in the northern reaches of the 94,000ha Ruahine Forest Park, a good two day’s hike from the end of the nearest road?
They used to live there before, according to Maori memories, and now it appears they are back.
If this is so, the mutton birds will be just part of an incredibly diverse range of animal and plant life being discovered in a remote and fairly inaccessible ‘‘lost world’’ pocket of land near Lake Colenso.
While no one species there has sufficient numbers to excite the interest of specialist researchers, the sheer variety, including many rare species, is breathtaking, says the Department of Conservation’s (DOC) Palmerrston North-based biodiversity manager, Vivienne McGlynn.
The lake is about 25km east of Taihape as the karearea (New Zealand falcon) flies and is surrounded by stands of red beech and podocarps such as rimu. Rising above the lake and increasing its isolation are 150m-high limestone karst escarpments.
And it is there that mutton bird nesting burrows have been found, some containing feathers.
‘‘The soil around the burrows is soft and rich in guano, suggesting there was once a colony there,’’ says DOC biodiversity ranger Rebecca Lewis.
‘‘The ‘pocket’ covers about 20,000ha,’’ says Richard Steedman of the Aorangi-Awarua Trust, which administers Maori land adjoining the Forest Park and co-operates with DOC on conservation projects that cover both areas.
He says mutton birds were known to have been there in the past and any return in large numbers would be welcomed.
In recent months, DOC rangers have made several visits to what they are calling their ‘‘hot spot’’. ‘‘The more we’re up there, the more we’re finding out,’’ says Ms Lewis. ‘‘There is a lot still unknown.’’
Her boss Mrs McGlynn agrees.‘‘We’ve always known it was a special place, but the problem has been getting enough people interested to do something about it.’’ ‘‘Now it appears that in the absence of a single dominant species the variety of possibilities for study is starting to attract researchers.
‘‘Our main focus now is to get in there more, learn more about the area, and get some predator control in place.’’
 Checking out plant life sometimes means getting up close and personal – really
close. The flora in the Ruahine hot spot ranges in size from the almost
microscopic to huge trees. In some areas, it’s like stepping back into the New
Zealand of centuries ago.
The 21 types of birds found in the hot spot include such nationally threatened species as the whio (blue duck), karearea (native falcon), koekoea (long-tailed cuckoo), and toutouwai (North Island robin). There are North Island brown kiwi, kaka (parrots), kakariki (parakeets), popokatea (whiteheads), kereru (native pigeons), and matata (fernbirds). And, now there is the possibility of the titi, or mutton birds, a type of petrel common to Snares Island south of New Zealand and the small islets lying close to the east and southwest of Stewart Island. In the north they are also found, but in lesser numbers on White Island, The Three Kings and The Poor Knights. They nest in burrows and holes under the rocks. Occasionally at North Island breeding places they even share the burrow, in a state of armed truce, with the tuatara.
Like the godwit, the titi is migratory, spending the northern summers on islands off the northwest coast of Alaska. Besides New Zealand, they are found in Tasmania and Cape Horn. Parent birds return to the same burrow or hole each year and spend about a month cleaning and repairing the nest for egg-laying in November. The eggs hatch around Christmas Day and the parents begin the task of stuffing food into their chicks who soon become little balls of fat covered with a soft down.
For DOC and helpers in the Ruahines, including enthusiastic teams of volunteers, the main task is to preserve their hot spot from the depredations of stoats, rats and hedgehogs that pillage nests for their eggs. Bigger raiders such as possums and deer are having negative impacts on the forests themselves. Browsing animals were introduced to the ranges as early as the
1880s. Sheep and cattle were grazed in some areas and later deer, pigs, goats, possums and hares spread through the park, competing with the native species.
In the 1950s and 1960s, deer cullers were active in the area and today recreational hunters provide the only form of deer control. Hunters and trampers have proved great champions of DOC’s attempts to cut back the inroads of the animals introduced by earlier generations. For example, around this time last year DOC and the Aorangi-Awarua
Trust laid a 20-kilometre line of stoat traps as part of a two-year project. Recently the line was extended into Trust land in the Ikawetea Valley and is now 57km long.
The study involved alternating unbaited traps with traps containing eggs to see if stoats’ natural curiosity would make bait unnecessary. One problem was that the traps would need to be checked every month. DOC didn’t have the staff for that, but thought volunteers might help out. Fat chance, you say. Who would want to head into such a remote area and slog along a set route checking traps every few hundred yards and recording the contents? Scores of people. There’s a waiting list, in fact. ‘‘We’re now taking bookings for 2010,’’ says Ms Lewis. ‘‘Some people who have been once are kindly standing down to allow others a turn.’’ For those who are wondering, yes, the stoats will check out unbaited traps.
 Meet Aceana rorida guttation, a tiny
bidibidi that grows nowhere else in
the world but near the Makirikiri Tarns
high in the ranges near the northern
reaches of the Ruahine Forest Park.
The droplets are not dew, but surplus
water being expelled from the vein
tips of the plant by internal pressure.
The Ruahine Forest Park starts at the Manawatu Gorge in the south and runs north for about 100km to the Taruarau and Ngaruroro Rivers, which form the boundary between the Ruahine and Kaweka Forest Parks. The park is rather narrow, with the southern third having a width of only 8km, increasing to 24km in the north.
According to DOC, the Ruahine Forest Park consists of the main Ruahine Range and four subsidiaries – the Ngamoko, Whanahuia, Hikurangi and Mokai Patea Ranges – which collectively make up the North Island’s main divide. Much of the land is rugged with sharp, crested ridges and altitudes ranging from 450m to 1733m at Mangaweka, the highest point of the Hikurangi Range. The headwaters of four major rivers rise in the park – the Rangitikei, Ngaruroro, Tukituki and Manawatu. In modern times the park is busy as a recreation centre, but this is only the latest chapter in a 1000-year human association.
Initially Maori visited the area to hunt, fish and collect plants. Several ancient tracks crossed the ranges, giving access to other parts of the North Island. Pioneer missionary the Reverend William Colenso was the first European explorer to make his mark and leave his name on the park, crossing the Ruahines at least seven times. His route, which was probably one used by early Maori, became known as Colenso’s Track.
Attempts at farming, sawmilling and even copper mining nibbled at the edges of the park, but the interior, with its mini ‘‘lost world’’, remains relatively untouched as a source of wonder and a window into New Zealand as it was centuries ago.
Courtesy of the Manawatu Standard | Saturday, March 29, 2008
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