We cross live to the centre of the universe
The three people just returned from the Stilt Ponds at the Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre were briefing me on birds they had seen, including one they were trying to identify. As we worked on this at the front desk, one of them leaned over and whispered: "Are you expecting a visitor?"
"We always get visitors," I said.
"No, a particular visitor."
"What do you mean?"
She pointed down the room to where the prime minister, Helen Clark, was studying the wader wall display. A few metres away her husband, Peter Davis, was reading the migration display panel. I glanced out the window. Standing beside a car, wires protruding from their ears, were two men in suits. My first thought was: where else in the world could a head of government walk undetected through the front door, just metres from where we stood? Once we had sorted the bird ID question (it was a pohowera banded dotterel) I ambled over and introduced myself.
"It's my first visit here," said the prime minister.
"Yes, I know," I replied, "but your father and sisters were here last year and signed up as members".
"Did they?"
They were interested in going for a walk, although it was low tide and they were unlikely to see much in the way of birds. The driver dropped them down at the Limeworks gate and then drove back to the trail end opposite the centre. Kevin, a young American guest, had earlier walked down to the hide. Quite unaware, he came back up the trail ahead of the prime minister and so encountered the wired guys at the gate. He asked me about it later, and I explained what it was all about. He remained puzzled. "Gee, I cannot imagine the President of the United States with such a minimal security detail." Welcome to New Zealand.
*
I enjoy a conceit that Pūkorokoro Miranda is the centre of the universe, on the theory that everyone will come to visit eventually. We've hosted meetings and workshops for the New Zealand Dotterel Recovery Group, the Brown Teal (Pāteke) Recovery group, students of drug and alcohol counselling, government social workers, Hauraki Women’s Refuge, cheesemakers and South American shamans. There literally have been four weddings and a funeral, along with Scottish country dancers, a machine knitting club, a busload of Australian croquet players, the New Zealand Croatian Women’s league, Perendale sheep breeders, the New Zealand Society of Recorder Players, 12 travel agents from Buenos Aires, and 18 Norwegian cyclists on a worldwide mission for peace.
As well as attracting extreme birders and those pursuing a general connection with the natural world, there have been countless visitors in whom such interests are minor or non-existent. Stieg, for instance, who appeared at the gate one evening in late January. A portly figure propped against his bicycle in the lengthening shadows, he gazed forlornly at the Closed sign. Even from that distance I could see him heaving for breath. I could also see despair. Appearing in view on the deck I motioned him in. He beamed and waddled towards me, trailing perspiration — and relief. He was Swedish, 52 years old and grossly out of shape. Nevertheless, he had set out to cycle around the North Island. I cannot recall where he had started out that day but, pushing his heavily laden bike, he looked exhausted. He stayed at the centre for two nights, and spent the bulk of the next day lounging around in ‘recovery mode’. An amiable fellow, his English was minimal at best, while I had no Swedish, so communication on that first night was fitful. On the second night he produced a bottle of scotch from his pannier — as I said, he was not travelling light — whereupon communication between us became surprisingly expansive. On the morning of his departure, as he secured the load on his bike, I asked how far he intended to travel that day. He patted his ample paunch and replied: "I take easy. I stay hot pools." Given the pools were a mere 5km away, I began to wonder about his likely progress. Perhaps to this day Stieg is still out there, leisurely completing his perambulations around the island.
One afternoon there emerged an elderly figure with long white sideburns spilling from under his brown felt trilby. He launched into an account of his latest wanderings fossicking in the hills. At first I listened politely, but as Jack Luckens expanded on his topic, I found myself pulling up a chair for each of us.
From Jack I learnt about tracking moa habitats through deposits of gizzard stones: the birds ingested stones to help grind down their food, and the stones were later regurgitated. The story was not in the actual stones but where they are found. For example, certain stones found in a wind-blown deposit of sandy soil in Northland were geologically out of place — they had to have been carried there. If you can discover where the stones originate, then the story starts to emerge. Luckens argued moa were relatively sedentary, with a home range of perhaps 1 to 2km, and that they favoured ridges over valley bottoms. I am unsure what the professional palaeontologist would make of his theories, although I understand that gizzard stones found with deposits of moa bones are likely to be more persuasive than the stones alone. Nonetheless, I was intrigued. This was not a subject to engage everyone, but for someone like me who is fascinated by the story told by a fragment of bone in a museum collection, it was a stimulating encounter.
*
In 2001 we received an enquiry from a literary agent seeking accommodation for a couple of visiting writers. In New Zealand to promote her Booker Prize-winning novel Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood had asked her agent to seek out birding spots, for both she and husband, Canadian novelist Graeme Gibson, were keen birders and naturalists. They also had green credentials: Atwood had donated the proceeds from the Booker to environmental causes in Canada. After their first sightings of wrybill and tūturiwhatu New Zealand dotterel we retreated to the Bayview pub in Kaiaua for dinner. They were delightful company, what with the mordant wit of Atwood and the compendious knowledge of the genial Gibson. The conversation often focused on birds and birding experiences, especially those we had in common, such as some of the gorgeous wood warblers of North America that I had seen for the first time in Texas, as they migrated north: many of them nest in Canada.
I was fortunate to host the couple on a return visit several years later, while Atwood was promoting Oryx and Crake. This time we dined together at the cottage. Birds were once again on the agenda, but we also returned to another topic first canvassed on the earlier visit: US presidential politics. The war in Iraq, and the dubious pretext for it, held centre stage. We also compared notes on sluggish responses to environmental issues and climate change in our respective home countries.
In the mid-1990s RNZ broadcast a series called Out with the Lark. The presenter, Matthew Lark, was a sound recordist with a voluminous knowledge of the natural world. He would make statements like: "I am standing in beech forest in Fiordland’s Eglinton Valley", or "This shag was recorded on the edge of a cliff in Otago." What was remarkable about such statements is that he was virtually blind. I acted as his guide during his several stays at the centre recording for his programme. I regarded myself as a kind of seeing-eye bird dog, until I experienced his acute sense of hearing: he would detect the presence of birds I could barely see.
Each morning at dawn we would set off to the hide. Along the road I provided broad descriptions of the landscape around us, an exercise that underlined how much we take for granted the daily world around us: in verbalising what I thought of as familiar scenes, I was noticing things for the first time. But once we were on site and there were birds in the vicinity, Lark was in his element. He would slowly wander about, one hand holding out a long microphone (almost a metre in length); the other hand, when he was not twiddling knobs and dials, waving about gracefully. On one occasion I was positioned a few metres behind him. Before him, on the edge of the outgoing tide, a large, chattering flock of oystercatchers, godwits and knots stood silhouetted against the rising sun — and all I could see was this short, squat shape broadly edged in gold, microphone held outwards, the other hand conducting a sublime orchestra.
Virtually all birders who visit New Zealand have Pūkorokoro on their schedules, such as the middle-aged couple who appeared in February 1994. They projected enthusiasm, and the binoculars they wore on their chests established their credentials. The opening conversation revealed they were French. As we chatted, I learnt they were heading back to work, in Wellington. I took the obvious guess: "Do you work at the embassy?’"
"Yes," he said, "I am the ambassador."
His excellency the French Ambassador Gabriel de Bellescize and his wife Cécile had been attending Treaty commemorations at Waitangi and were now returning south, birding along the way. It had been one of his last official engagements and they were shortly leaving the country. They were a warm and friendly pair, and I was very much enjoying our chat — so that when he expressed admiration for the poster Life of a Tidal Mudflat on sale in the shop, I found myself reluctant to inform him of the circumstances of its production. It had recently been printed, funded by a grant from the South Pacific Development Trust — otherwise known as the compensation money paid by the French government for bombing the Rainbow Warrior. I felt it would be churlish to raise this. It is something I have regretted ever since: as a diplomat he would doubtless have handled the revelation with Gallic aplomb.
The area has a similar pull on photographers. Books and calendars with photographs by the naturalist and ornithologist Geoff Moon are to be found in many homes in this country, and it is likely that one or more of the images will feature birds standing on shell: if so, they are almost certainly taken at Pūkorokoro or nearby. Moon was a prolific and much published photographer, even more so after he retired from his veterinary practice. Tall, lean and energetic, he was a frequent visitor in his well-used VW van. He always seemed to be in a hurry, as if he had no time to lose. Of course, among shorebird people time and tide are of the essence, and perhaps even more so for the photographer. I always felt I had achieved something on the rare occasions I managed to persuade him to linger over a cup of tea. He was a genial man, and generous in his support of the Trust: he provided many images for our early displays and publications.
*
The prime minister and her husband returned from their walk but, as it was low tide, they had seen few birds. We invited them to return on a more suitable tide. Some months later they did, and we spent a very pleasant session at the hide talking birds and other things. There were several interesting aspects to this visit, which was scheduled for a Saturday when the prime minister would be in transit between a function in Auckland and Waihī Beach, where her father lived. There was no need for them to come to the centre, so we arranged to meet at the carpark gate. Nevertheless, on Tuesday we received notification that the Diplomatic Protection Service (DPS) squad would be coming to scrutinise the Shorebird Centre ahead of the visit. Shortly before they were due I received a call from one of the team. "We are outside Miranda Orchard. Where are you?"
I gave directions for the 4km route to the centre. Ten minutes later there came another call: "We are now at Kaiaua, where are you?"
Evidently, they had driven straight past. When they did arrive, I pointed out that the prime minister would not be coming to the centre, but proceeded to give them a tour of the complex anyway.
On the afternoon of the visit the Crown limo pulled up outside the Limeworks gate. The prime minister emerged and fossicked in the boot, before disappearing back into the car. She reappeared, having changed into casual attire — a T-shirt and tracksuit pants. I wondered what young Kevin would have made of this minimalist wardrobe process. I learnt later that while we were proceeding out to the hide, the DPS were checking out the closed and deserted Shorebird Centre.
Taken with kind permission from In Pursuit of Champions: The Inspiring Story of the Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre by Keith Woodley (Pūkorokoro Miranda Naturalists’ Trust in association with Sherlock & Co. Publishing, $40), available in bookstores nationwide.
