Nature’s Corner – Winter to Early Spring 2006
Is it Winter? Is it Spring?
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| Roto Kawau reflections 17 July |
The Karori Wildlife Sanctuary has had its share of chilling southerlies and cold wet weather that settled in for days, but even in winter there are stunningly beautiful days when the sun shines, the birds sing and there is hardly a ripple on the lake.
By August, fine days have definite hints of spring. A day or two hence, when another front sweeps through and temperatures plummet we may have to admit that August is late winter after all, but in those spring-like intervals, when I see tuatara out basking again and tui soaring up into a blue sky and tumbling back down in a most extraordinary way, I am easily convinced that we humans have got it wrong and there are only two months of winter, June and July. Certainly many birds seem to be of that opinion. Pair bonds are being renewed, new relationships cultivated, breeding territories redefined and possible nesting sites assessed. Plants are showing signs of seasonal change too: new leaves are emerging on some and flower buds are becoming increasingly noticeable.
Tieke Times
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| Tieke hunting a grub Photo by Tom Lynch |
When guiding on 5 August I noticed, and pointed out to visitors looking for tuatara on the other side of the road, a tieke / North Island saddleback (Philesturnus carunculatus rufusater) that had alighted on the side of one of the Weta Hotels close to Tui Terrace. Weta Hotels have been constructed using natural logs with bark still attached. As we gazed, this tieke started peeling back slivers of stringy inner bark. ‘Looking for insects’, I announced knowledgeably, but a moment later I had to revise my opinion when the bird flew off carrying a bunch of bark slivers in its beak. It had nest building, not eating, on its mind.
We had seen only the head and upper body when it was collecting the material. Had I been able to note down its coloured leg bands, I would have been able to find out something of the past history of this particular bird thanks to data collected by our bird monitoring teams. Nevertheless, I did learn when I made enquiries that, going on precedent, established pairs would be building their nests by the second week in August and that I had most probably seen the ‘Tui Terrace Pair’ female, WM-WB, that usually nests somewhere between Tui Terrace and the Weka Fence.
Our tieke have been monitored since the founding birds were released in the Sanctuary in winter 2002 in order to assess how well they are settling and surviving in their new home and to gather information that may be useful in ensuring the success of future translocations of this species. After a very good 2005-2006 breeding season, the population is considered sufficiently well established and self-sustaining that it will not need to be monitored during the new breeding season. This will free up staff and volunteers involved in bird monitoring to concentrate on less well established species, where more knowledge may be crucial to achieving a good outcome.
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| Tieke hunting insects Photo by Tom Lynch |
However, staff would still be interested in reports from visitors about sighting of banded birds that could be added to the existing database. Young birds from last season’s hatchings are all distinguished by orange over metal bands on one leg. They are now starting to look for partners and it would be interesting to know who is hanging out with whom and whether it is becoming a regular thing. For instance, OM-BY and OM-RR are said to be ‘loosely together’ at the junction of the Faultline and Round the Lake tracks. Potentially a new breeding pair, but only further sightings can confirm or repudiate that suspicion. Another young adult, OM-YB, is being seen along Lake Road from just south of the Weka Fence to the Ops Shed at the northern end. He (we think it’s a male) is believed to be a lonely bachelor at present, but some day you may see him with Miss Right (or Mr Right, if we have assigned him to the wrong gender). Tell us if you do, but remember that complete band combinations are essential to ensure the reliability of data collected.
Looking into Kotukutuku Flowers
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| Hermaphrodite kotukutuku flowers with blue pollen |
Kotukutuku / Tree Fuchsia (Fuchsia excorticata). These have been flowering throughout the winter and provide nectar-feeding birds with a much-needed high-energy food during the coldest months when there are few other sources of nectar available. Tui, korimako / bellbirds and hihi have all been making the most of it and getting that unusual blue pollen on their heads in the process. The trees depend on the birds to transfer pollen between flowers, fertilizing them so that fruit can be formed.
We often refer in these pages to species in which male and female flowers are on separate plants. In botanical parlance they are dioecious. Kotukutuku, however, are gynodioecious, meaning that some trees have hermaphrodite flowers with both pollen-producing stamens (the male element) and a pollen-receiving stigma (part of the female element) but other trees have flowers that function only as females. In those the female part is normal but the vestigal stamens, called staminodes, cannot produce pollen. Such trees are totally dependent on birds bringing them pollen from hermaphrodite trees, but the pay-off is that all their offspring will result from cross-pollination and have greater genetic variation that will give them a competitive advantage in the race for survival.
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| Female kotukutuku flower with sterile staminodes |
In these photographs I have turned flowers upside down so you can see the difference in the stamens of the two flower types. The hermaphrodite flowers are larger because they have to accommodate full-sized stamens. The stamens project well beyond the flower tube and shed blue pollen. The female flower is smaller, the staminodes are very short, only just projecting from the flower tube, and there is no pollen.
For a close view of hermaphrodite flowers, when walking on Lake Road beside the Research Area fence use the numbering on the fence to locate the trees opposite and behind 92. Alternatively, inspect the largest tree opposite the North Island Kaka information panel. Look for fallen female flowers around the southernmost seat at Tui Terrace or in the vicinity of the track sign at the south end of the Swamp Track. Flowers are red at the time of falling.
- For more information on flowers and fruit in the Sanctuary at this time of year, refer to the Late Winter / Early Spring 2005 edition in our Archive.
Flowers to Come
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| Kowhai flower buds |
Kowhai (Sophora microphylla). At the time of writing, the flower buds are barely noticeable, but they are there. This is how they will look just before the flowers open. In the Sanctuary, flowering commences in mid to late September. Two trees off the west end of the Upper Dam, near the start of the steps to the discovery area, are usually the first to flower.
- For more about what to expect in spring refer to the Early to Mid Spring 2005 flora edition.
Fruit to Go
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| Tieke eating pate fruit |
Pate / Seven Finger (Schefflera digitata). On several occasions during the winter months I have seen tieke enjoying this fruit. Take a look at the tree on the west side of Lake Road just south of the Weka Fence. It still had plenty of ripe and ripening fruit dotted on sprays of finger-like stems in August. If you hear a tieke calling close by, pause a while and you may see it carefully picking out the choicest fruit. If you have a camera that focuses extra quickly, you may get the photograph I wanted. This bird hatched in the Sanctuary on 2 December 2005 during the last breeding season, but if it can find a mate, it will likely be parenting its own brood this season.
Ghost Dung, Earthstars and other Curiosities
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| Tutae kehua / basket fungus |
‘Well it’s obvious isn’t it? These skeletal shapes that mysteriously appear and disappear must be tutae kehua (ghost dung).’
‘Come on, I don’t believe that. The real explanation is much simpler. They fall down from the sky at night. This is tutae whetu (star dung).’
‘No, you are both wrong. Stars are too far away, but we have all seen lightning descend to the ground. This is tutae whaitiri (lightning dung).
Two hundred years ago that is how Maori from different localities might have argued the merits of the varying local names for what is called less imaginatively in English the white basket fungus (Ileodictyon cibarius). Why should they all agree on tutae (dung) as part of the name? The interior of the skeletal ball is smeared with a stinky brown substance that attracts flies. What else could it be?
Actually, this is a clever ploy by the fungus to disperse its spores far and wide. The flies are persuaded by appearance and smell that they have found a skeleton with some remnants of rotting flesh still adhering to the bones, but really the smelly substance contains masses of spores. In the process of feeding on or investigating the smelly stuff, the flies get spores stuck to them. When they fly away and groom themselves later, they leave spores at new locations. These can germinate and grow into more tutae kehua / basket fungi. The photograph above was taken on 22 July at the north-east corner of the Morning Star lay-by. That specimen will have disintegrated by now but keep an eye out for others. They can pop up anywhere along the tracks.
Winter is a good time to look for fungal fruit-bodies. Essentially that is what tutae kehua, toadstools, puffballs, and other obvious fungi are. They are organs that produce and release spores to perpetuate their species. The organisms that give rise to them are like networks of microscopic threads and live hidden in the soil, wood or leaf litter.
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| Earthstar (Geastrum species) |
A week later I was walking north from the Henderson Lawn on the new track (an extension to Te Mahanga Track) when I noticed this little earthstar on the western verge just a few paces past the last big totara. It is a specialised type of puffball with a protective outer layer. Once it has emerged from the ground to sit on the surface, that layer splits into petal-like sections that open out like a flower. When the central ball is mature it contains a mass of powdery spores and a hole forms at the top for their release. The surrounding petals have folded right back, slightly elevating the ball. The force of raindrops striking the ball causes spores to be puffed out into the atmosphere. Fungal spores are so light they can be carried long distances on air currents.
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| Delicate fluted toadstools |
Just a few steps on, a large colony of small and delicate toadstools with fluted tops was growing on a pile of leaf-litter and other debris. There seemed to be three distinct groups with different cap shapes ranging from the cloche to the parasol, presumably all the same species at different stages of development. Their spores are shed from gills under their caps.
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| Hakeka / wood ear fungus |
Nearby, on a dead (but still standing) tree trunk, were the large brown rubbery flaps of hakeka / wood ear or ear fungus (Auricularia cornea, formerly A. polytricha). Some Maori names also compare the shape to an ear, for example taringa kuri (dog ear), taringa rakau (tree, or wood, ear) and taringa o Tiakiwai (Tiakiwai’s ear). I would love to know who Tiakiwai was and why his name was chosen. Was he renowned for the size of his ears or a detested habit of eavesdropping? Unfortunately, no explanation seems to have been recorded and we can’t be sure Tiakiwai was a real person. Hakeka is probably becoming the most used of the Maori names, because it tops any alphabetical list and is shorter than most.
Hakeka is common in lowland forests where it typically grows on the bark and wood of broadleaved trees. I have only noticed it in the Sanctuary on dead trees, but it is said to grow on live trees also. It can be found at most times of the year and, although it does not look particularly appetising, it is edible. Chew Chong, the 19th century Taranaki dairy industry pioneer, once exported large quantities to China for food and medicinal use. Collecting the fungus was an important income supplement for many poor farming families and this earned it another jocular name: Taranaki wool.
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| Coral fungus |
Coral fungi are so called because their fruit-bodies have a superficial resemblance to certain undersea corals. They are quite diminutive, but their colours can bring them to our notice. So far I have seen salmon pink, yellow and bright lemon ones in the Sanctuary, mostly on the Beech Track or the Round the Lake Track. Their spores are produced on the surfaces of their branches and they decay and vanish quite quickly once their mission has been accomplished. This pale tan one was already in a state of collapse when I saw it at the foot of the steep Beech Track in late July. There is no certainty that you will see what I saw at the same sites, but I hope this account will help you recognise these or similar fungi when they materialise elsewhere.
What's that on the track?
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| Kowhai seeds |
Kowhai (Sophora microphylla). In June, bright yellow kowhai seeds, freshly released from pods disintegrating on the wet ground, were seen near the top of the Swamp Track and also on the eastern section of the Round the Lake Track where there is a nearby kowhai grove. The seedcoat turns from yellow to brown as it ages, but it is very tough and the seeds remain buoyant and viable even after floating in the sea for years. They seem to be particularly suited for dispersal by water and kowhai trees often line the banks of streams.
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| Puawananga petals |
Puawananga (Clematis paniculata). If you see stark white petals like these at your feet, a puawananga vine is flowering overhead. Look especially on the upper Beech Track this year. Late August and September is when flowering usually takes place here. Patches of their starry flowers can be seen on the canopy of the western scarp then.
Morning Star Prospectors
At weekends a volunteer guide usually spends up to an hour at the Morning Star mine, a tunnel made by 19th century gold prospectors, handing out safety helmets and providing information to visitors who wish to explore this historic site. Some days there is constant bustle at the mine, even queues, but on others there are quiet intervals while the guide waits for more customers. That is when the guide may meet a feathered prospector.
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| Toutouwai / North Island Robin "prospector" |
It arrives silently and quite unexpectedly. You notice a movement out of the corner of an eye and suddenly you realise that there is a toutouwai / North Island robin (Petroica australis longipes) perched low on a nearby sapling or even on the back of the wooden seat you are sitting on. It is doing a preliminary survey to see if there is anything on the ground that may repay investigation. This one chose the plastic basket full of safety helmets for its vantage point. To prolong its visit I aided its prospecting by scraping aside some leaf litter.
Move slowly so as not to cause alarm when doing this and, keeping within sight of the bird, maintain your distance or retreat a little to do your scraping rather than going closer. Then sit (or stand) back and watch. There may be some initial hesitation, but usually it soon flies or hops across to the site to look for insects and other small creatures that may have been exposed. Prospecting toutouwai even go hopping into the mine entrance on occasion and pull prey from cracks and crevices along the foot of the tunnel walls, but I have never seen any go beyond the area illuminated by daylight. Just as well for the colonies of tokoriro / cave weta (Gymnoplectron edwardsii) sleeping in the darkness further in.
Ten years ago you could not see a toutouwai anywhere in the Sanctuary. They were locally extinct. They were reintroduced in 2001 and chicks hatched in the Sanctuary were banded for the first few years. By the end of the 2004/5 breeding season the population was well established and intensive monitoring and banding ceased. So don’t be surprised if you encounter unbanded birds like the one in the photograph. With baseline information already collected, monitoring can be reactivated for this or any other species whenever it is desirable to check their population status in the future.
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| Male Weka (Red Metal-White) |
Another feathered prospector I sometimes see is Red Metal-White, a male North Island weka (Gallirallus australis greyi) who hatched in the Sanctuary and was banded in August 2005. They may be bigger than the little toutouwai, but he and his relations are less confident around humans. If you are going to have quality time with a North Island weka, I have found it pays to stay very still and become part of the scenery. This photograph represents my closest encounter yet. A few seconds later he was subjecting my boots to an exacting scrutiny that ended with a few experimental tugs on a lace, but by then he was so close my camera wouldn’t focus. The bootlace was evidently not to his taste (or perhaps my double knotted bow baffled him) because he moved off to prospect the mine. Like the toutouwai he turned back on reaching the edge of darkness. Outside again, he sauntered onto the downward track looking very composed, until the sound of people approaching sent him scuttling into the bushes.
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| 'I was just testing the elastic' Photo by Tom Lynch |
Another day I observed Red Metal-White doing just what we expect weka to do (based on South Island or Kapiti Island experiences). I was coming down the Morning Star Track carrying the basket of helmets, when I saw him emerge from the bushes some distance ahead and stroll over to inspect a baby buggy that had been left parked on a corner to avoid hauling it up a flight of steps. He moved around it, testing various parts of it with his beak. Apparently favourably impressed with the texture of a sheepskin covering the seat, he suddenly closed his mandibles on one edge and pulled. It seemed to be coming off. He took a better grip and attempted to walk off with it. Fortunately it was attached with elastic, so a tug of war developed.
Now I know the buggy owners will say I should have rushed to the rescue, but I have to confess that in the true spirit of wildlife photography all I thought about was capturing this moment on camera. Unfortunately it was in my backpack. Forgetting about being part of the scenery, I hastily put down the basket, shrugged off my pack and, before I could lay my hands on it, there was a resounding thwack as the sheepskin returned to its rightful place. The weka, needless to say, had vanished. Well, I suppose even Geoff Moon has had similar disappointments.
This edition of Nature's Corner was written by Sanctuary volunteer Allison Buchan on 14-16 August 2006. Information relating to individual banded tieke and weka was provided by Sanctuary conservation staff. All photographs in this edition are taken by Allison Buchan, except where indicated, and are © Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. Clicking on photos with blue borders will take you to a larger photo.