Kakaruai - South Island robin

Along with pīwakawaka (NZ fantails), our kakaruai are probably the 'friendliest' birds in the South Island forest. While they're not 'friendly' per se, like pīwakawaka they are keen on the bugs that humans are likely to disturb. Sit down for more than a few minutes and they may well be hopping around your feet. A few minutes more and they're on your boots tugging at loose threads. With enough time, and if you're lucky enough, they may hop onto your knee or even onto your hat (that happened to me once for a second during a two-hour kākāriki karaka nest watch). Here are a few I've met over the last few months.

Birds New Zealand - field trip

The annual conference of Birds New Zealand (The Ornithological Society of New Zealand Inc) was in Nelson over the weekend. The conference finished up with a field-trip day. I and another Brook volunteer led one of the field trips to the middle of the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary to see kākāriki karaka (the second-most critically-endangered forest bird in New Zealand, the kākāpō tops that list).

I had warned participants that although a detection or two of our target birds was very likely, there was always a chance that we may not get terribly close. A memorable detection would become more likely with more time spent in the sanctuary.

Present on the field trip was well-known NZ ornithologist Dr. Colin Miskelly (he manages the NZ bird encyclopedia New Zealand Birds Online). Over the summer he'd walked 3225 km doing the Te Araroa Trail logging every bird he saw or heard. It amounted to 104,429 bird detections all up. I thought I was a keen birder until I met Colin. I felt like a slacker by comparison. Although I bet I've seen a lot more kākāriki karaka than he has!

We set off uphill at a brisk pace (giving us more time in the 'hot zone'). An hour after we set off (and a height gain of 250m) we stopped at one of the monitoring lines, within a few minutes a couple of kākāriki karaka appeared in the foliage nearby. Not a great view, but officially that was mission accomplished! As it was still morning, I suggested we gain another 150m and head slowly east along one of the higher monitoring lines, that would bring us into the middle of the kākāriki karaka hot zone and a likelihood of more detections.

Sure enough, we had a few more detections. E.g., this guy here appeared to have just fed his mate (courtship feeding), a reasonable sign that they may be considering a winter nest.

Along the way we met a friendly kakaruai / south island robin, a few ngirungiru / tomtits, a brief view of a tītitipounamu / rifleman, and the usual hordes of korimako / bellbirds amongst others.

Ngirungiru / tomtit

Kakaruai / south-island robin

After a lunch break, we had the most memorable of our kākāriki karaka interactions. A curious solitary male checked us out for 6-7 minutes, initially in the foliage nearby, then he landed atop a decaying tree trunk overhead for a few minutes, then back into the foliage. He came within about 3m of us at one stage, more than close enough to bring smiles to faces and the icing on the cake of a successful day.