Elegy for the Weka (Woodhen)

Unbridled your curiosity and with a

propensity to annex anything moveable,

I salute you Weka, synonym for a thief.

Crafty and impudent, what does it take for a

flightless bird to survive against the odds, to survive

hoons, lazing on verandas in the summer heat,

using you for target practice: and Lady Barker, -

“They run quickly, availing themselves of the

least bit of cover, but when you hear a short,

sharp cry, it is a sign that the poor Weka is

nearly done and the next thing you see is Fly

shaking a bundle of brown feathers vehemently.

All the dogs are trained to hunt these birds, as they are

a great torment, sucking eggs and killing chickens.”

Comments

Of Aphis and Ants, the end of the anthropocene

Marta had been awoken as usual by their antennae softly stroking her on the inner wrist. They seemed to wait until they were sure she was awake before crawling up her arm. They stroked her arm again just inside the elbow. She suspected they were administering a local anaesthetic. She waited with the usual sense of dread for the tiny pin pricks as they probed. There were always just three of them. Were they the same three ants every day? She couldn't tell. They were on the large size for ants, but ants they were, although their proboscides was more mosquito like than that of any ant. It was over in a few minutes. They waddled off with the bags inside their legs full of her blood. They disappeared under the door. There was no keeping them out. They could fire off acid to dissolve any lock, any door, and leave humans a pulpy heap if they resisted or tried to fight back. They always made Marta think of the ants on the rose bushes ...

Tunnel-web spiders and golden hunting wasps

My wildlife experiences these days are pretty much confined to my backyard and a daily ramble around the village of Greytown, New Zealand. During my daily walks, it is the birds which attract my attention: skylarks, (“Hail to thee, blithe spirit”), goldfinches, (“gaillard he was as a goldfynch in the shawe”), black birds, (“shouting all day at nothing in leafy dells alone”), the song thrush, greenfinch, chaffinch, dunnock, california quail, house sparrow, eastern rosella, Australian magpie, starling, yellowhammer –foreigners all. Most of them were introduced in the nineteenth century as bio-agents to control plagues of insects brought about by the wholesale destruction of the bush and the consequential severe disruption of the eco-system. I welcome them all, knowing that in the not too distant future we may be lucky to see any bird at all. I do see the odd native bird; kotare, the kingfisher, pipiwharauroa, the shining cuckoo and its dupe ...

Ara Moa

Greytown, Te Hupenui, is my turangawaewae, the place where I stand, the place where I was born. Wellington and the Wairarapa are where my family settled in the nineteenth century. My ancestors walked the streets of Wellington, Pahiatua, Masterton and the shores of Lake Wairarapa, as I do now. Scientists report, from the evidence of pollen grains, that before humans arrived here, 85-90% of New Zealand, including the Wairarapa, was covered with forest. Grassland or shrubland occurred, as it does now, on river terraces subject to regular flooding, frost-prone valley floors, steep cliffs, and active sand dunes. Outside these limited areas the forest cover was unbroken. In this forested country, the moa roamed, its only predator the great Haast eagle. Evidence suggests that m oa nested in the dunes around the Wairarapa coast and under high rock ledges. On my sister’s farm, near the Mangatainoka river, ...

Greytown county almanac

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