Greytown county almanac

With all the hullabaloo about the impact of intensive farming on waterways, the impact on birds has been overlooked.  Millions of birds have been lost from New Zealand countryside over the past thirty odd years. Most of them were introduced birds so have not been missed but surely someone should have recognised that their loss indicated something had gone very wrong with farmland ecosystems.   We have a survey on New Zealand’s backyard birds, initiated by Landcare Research, but no up to date information on the birds of the countryside. The only comprehensive data we have is from the Ornithological Society of New Zealand’s  Atlas of Bird Distribution in New Zealand 1999-2004 which was published 2007. It was noted at its launch that  the Waikato region had become  a "bird desert" probably because of the dominance of dairy farming in the region.  Birds have not, it seems, fared quite so badly on the less intensive meat and wool farm...

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 ...