Skip to main content

Putangitangi, the paradise shelduck



This being the duck shooting season, paradise ducks in the paddocks around Greytown are especially wary and start sounding the alarm even though I am still a great distance away, walking my dog as I am want to do. The male has the deeper voice, dueting with his mate as they fly off.

Putangitangi, the paradise shelduck, is endemic to New Zealand, that is it is found nowhere else in the world. It was discovered first by Captain Cook at Dusky Sound in 1773 during his second voyage. Cook called it the Painted Duck. They were not a common bird before settlement by Europeans but are now the one endemic bird which has prospered with the conversion of native forest to pasture. They have increased greatly in numbers through this century and are now only partially protected.

They are a large duck and are always seen in pairs except during the moulting season. The drake has a black head with a greenish gloss, the body being dark grey barred with black. The undertail and tertials are orange chestnut. The duck has a white head and the body is a bright orange chestnut.

They mainly graze on grass and weeds, or standing crops of peas or grain which can mean they often get on the wrong side of farmers.

Most paradise duck start breeding when 2 years old and pairs remain together from year to year, returning to the same nesting area. If one bird dies, its mate occupies the same territory and re-mates again. Having adapted to New Zealand when it was largely forested, they are able to nest in trees, in the epiphytes which festoon many New Zealand treees, but now they usually nest on the ground, well hidden beneath a log or clumps of grass. The ducklings have a striking pattern of brown and white down but when they fledge at around eight weeks they resemble adult males, except the females have whiter patches around the eyes and the base of the bill.

Ducks provided Maori with quite a considerable portion of their food supply in some favoured districts, including the Wairarapa. When the ducks were moulting they became very fat and it was at this time that the rahui, which protected the birds during their breeding season, was lifted. The birds having become flightless, could be collected, driven and herded from open lake waters into the water plants lining the shores and there caught in very large numbers. Women and children often took part in the drive, everyone entering the canoes and to make a pleasure jaunt of it. Dogs were also used to capture the birds.

Sir W. Buller tells us that in 1867, 7000 duck were taken in three days at lake Rotomahana. Similar numbers were also being taken at other lakes at the same time. The ducks taken were primarily Parera, the grey duck, but paradise duck were also among the numbers. This was long before Mallard ducks were introduced. When such large numbers of birds were taken many of them were cooked and preserved in their fat in gourds or bark vessels.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 ...
1 comment
Read more

Butterflies

Having developed the habit of watching out for birds, then one is also likely to observe those other beautiful creatures on the wing, butterflies. The Monarch butterflies are hard to miss as they float about our gardens, alighting on some flower or leaf, giving us time to observe and admire. They are just so voluptuous drifting about the garden before being carried off like any baggage by some male to keep sequestered. Our own endemic butterflies, the red and yellow admirals, however, are likely to be missed as they flit very quickly away before one has a chance to observe their beautiful colouring, the patterns of yellow and the red on black. Gibbs, the grandson of our most illustrious entomologist G.V. Hudson, claims the Monarch is a native, having got here under its own steam, following the plantings of the milkweeds by missionaries across the Pacific Islands. However, with their legendary ability to fly over enormous distances, they may well have arrived in NZ somwhat ea...
Post a Comment
Read more