For
CHRIS and JIM
in memory of
Leeches, Lyrebirds and the
Bicycle in the Chimney
(not to mention the Glow-worms)
Contents
A Word in Advance
PART ONE
Land of the Long White Cloud
The Arrival
1. Geysers, Wekas and Kakas
2. The Three-Eyed Lizard
3. The Bird that Vanished
PART TWO
The Attic of the World
The Arrival
4. Lyrebirds and Leadbeaters
5. A Treeful of Bears
6. The Miracle Climb
PART THREE
The Vanishing Jungle
The Arrival
7. The Singers in the Trees
8. The Giants’ Nursery
Summing up
A Message from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
A Word in Advance
This is the chronicle of a six-month journey which took us through New Zealand, Australia and Malaya. The reasons for this journey were twofold – firstly that I wanted to see what was being done about conservation in these countries, and secondly that the BBC wanted to make a series of television films on the same subject. I am acutely conscious of the fact that the length of time we spent in each country gives the impression of an extremely rapid Cook’s tour and, quite obviously, I have probably misshapen the truth and left out a number of things which I should have mentioned.
It is, strangely enough, very difficult to write a book like this and try to strike a happy medium between a work entitled Two and a Half Days in Djakarta or South East Asia Exposed and to write the literal truth, as you see it, which may appear offensive to the many people who gave you such unstinting help and such warm hospitality; people unfortunately have a habit of taking things personally.
So may I take this opportunity to fend off a few of the irate letters which I will inevitably receive from New Zealanders, Australians and Malayans, telling me that no one who has spent only six weeks in the country has the right to criticise. I think that having spent five minutes in a place you have every right to criticise. Whether your criticisms are valid or not is for the reader to decide. But at any rate, I can say one thing with all honesty – that it was a glorious trip and I enjoyed every moment of it.
PART ONE
Land of the Long White Cloud
The Arrival
He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,
With his name printed clearly on each.
Hunting of the Snark
We had meant to creep unobtrusively into New Zealand, film and see what we wanted to, and then creep unobtrusively out again. But when the ship docked at Auckland, we found that the Wildlife Department – having been appraised of our arrival – had unrolled a red carpet of embarrassing dimensions for us. The first intimation of this was the arrival on board of a short, stocky individual (looking not unlike a muscular Tweedle Dum) with round, innocent baby-blue eyes and a wide grin.
‘I,’ he proclaimed, crushing my hand in an iron grasp, ‘am Brian Bell of the Wildlife Service. The department has given me the job of escorting you round New Zealand and making sure that you see all you want to see.’
‘That’s extremely kind of the department,’ I said, ‘but I had really no intention of worrying . . .’
‘I have driven your Land-Rover up from Wellington,’ interrupted Brian firmly, ‘and yesterday I met your two colleagues from the BBC and they are on their way up to meet us.’
‘That’s very kind . . .’ I began.
‘Also,’ continued Brian as if I had not spoken, fixing me with his hypnotic blue stare, ‘I have worked out an itinerary for you. Just cross out the things you don’t want to do.’
He handed me a sheaf of typewritten documents that looked like a cross between the plans for a royal state visit and some gigantic army manoeuvres. It was full of fascinating suggestions and orders, such as ‘June five, 0500 hours, see royal albatross, Taiaroa Head.’ Had the albatross, I wondered dazedly, been issued with a similar itinerary and, if so, would they fly past in formation and dip their wings in salute? But in spite of these intriguing thoughts, I was a bit alarmed for I did not want my trip to New Zealand to degenerate into that hideous thing, the conducted tour. However, before I could voice an opinion on the matter, Brian had glanced at his watch, scowled terrifyingly, muttered to himself and then disappeared at a smart trot. I was leaning against the rail, clutching my massive itinerary and feeling slightly dazed, when Jacquie appeared.
‘Who was that bloke in the brown suit I saw you talking to?’ she asked.
‘That was one Brian Bell,’ I replied, handing her the itinerary. ‘He’s from the Wildlife Department and he has been sent especially to Organise us with a capital O.’
‘I thought that’s just what you wanted to avoid?’ said Jacquie. ‘It was,’ I said gloomily.
She glanced rapidly through the itinerary and raised her eyebrows.
‘How long do they think we’re staying – ten years?’ she asked.
At that moment Brian returned and I introduced him to Jacquie.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said absently. ‘Now, all your luggage has gone ashore and I have arranged customs clearance. We’ll load it up and drive to the hotel. The first press conference I’ve arranged for eleven o’clock and the second one for two-thirty. Then there’s the TV interview tonight, but we needn’t worry about that yet. So if you’re ready, we can get started.’
Our minds in a whirl, we were hustled ashore by Brian and the next few hours were among the most hectic I have ever spent. When we arrived at the hotel Brian handed us over to the government PRO, Terry Egan, a small man with a humorous, carunculated face and a pleasant wit.
‘I’ll leave you with Terry,’ said Brian, ‘and see you later. I’ve got a bit more Organising to do.’
What was he going to Organise, I wondered? A guard of honour consisting of ten thousand Kiwis to line the streets as we left Auckland? In the very short time I had known Brian Bell I felt that he might be capable of Organising even this. So Brian left us, and hardly had he disappeared when the first gaggle of reporters arrived. After that, things became increasingly chaotic. We were photographed from every conceivable angle and our most fatuous statements treated with the reverence that would be accorded to the utterances of a couple of sages. Then came a welcome but all too brief pause for lunch, and the whole thing started all over again. Late in the afternoon, as the last of the reporters left, I turned to Terry as a drowning man might turn to a straw.
‘Terry,’ I implored hoarsely, ‘isn’t there a nice, quiet place we can go and have a drink and not talk for ten minutes or so . . . some peaceful nirvana where reporters are not allowed?’
‘Yes,’ said Terry promptly, ‘I can jack that up . . . know the very place.’
‘Well, while you have a drink I’ll go and have a bath,’ said Jacquie.
‘Okay, we won’t be long,’ I said. ‘I just want something to soothe my shattered nerves. If anyone else asks me what I think of New Zealand, I shall scream.’
‘Yes,’ said Jacquie, ‘what did you say to that female reporter who asked you that? I couldn’t hear.’
‘He said that he thought the little bit of the docks that he’d seen were very pretty,’ said Terry chuckling.
‘You shouldn’t say things like that,’ said Jacquie.
‘Well, it was a silly question and it deserved a silly answer.’
‘Come on,’ said Terry, ‘we both need a drink.’
I followed Terry out of the hotel and down the street. We turned several corners and then came to a brown door, through which Terry
dived. I followed him thirstily into what I thought was going to be a haven of peace and tranquillity.
I shall always attribute my uncertain start in New Zealand to the fact that I was introduced too early to what is known as ‘the five o’clock swill’. The phrase has, when you consider it, a wonderful pastoral – one might almost say idyllic – ring to it. It conjures up a picture of fat but hungry porcines, all freshly scrubbed, eagerly and gratefully partaking of their warm mash from the horny but kindly hands of a jovial farmer, a twinkling-eyed son of the soil.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The five o’clock swill is the direct result of New Zealand’s imbecilic licensing laws. In order to prevent people from getting drunk the pubs close at six, just after the office workers leave work. This means that they have to leave their place of employment, rush frantically to the nearest pub, and make a desperate attempt to drink as much beer as they can in the shortest possible time. As a means of cutting down on drunkenness, this is quite one of the most illogical deterrents I have come across.
The Haven of Peace that Terry had lured me into was just in the process of dishing out the five o’clock swill, and the scene was almost indescribable. Dozens of thirsty New Zealanders lined the bar some twenty deep, all talking at the tops of their voices and gulping beer as fast as they could. To facilitate the replenishing of their glasses with all possible speed, the beer was served through a long hosepipe with a tap on the end. As the empty glasses were slapped on the counter, the man behind the bar moved rapidly up and down squirting them full of beer. This was an operation fraught with difficulty, and more beer appeared to go on the counter than anywhere else. I was introduced to half a dozen people in rapid succession, none of whose names I caught, and they all promptly bought me a glass of beer. At one point I had eight glasses of beer in front of me and my hands were so occupied with holding another three glasses that I could no longer shake hands with anyone. Everyone, periodically – as if at a given signal – would shout, ‘Drink up, drink up, they close in a minute’. With the combination of the beer and the noise my head started to ache. I managed to drink my eight glasses of beer and, like a hideous conjuring trick, another eight appeared in their place. New Zealand hospitality is generous, but exhausting. Then suddenly an enormous brass bell let out an ear-splitting clanging, like the distraught cries of a fire engine thwarted in love. I thought the pub must have caught fire and wondered hazily if they would put out the conflagration with a hosepipe full of beer. I found Terry looking at me mournfully.
‘I’m sorry, Gerry, that’s closing time,’ he said with considerable sadness. ‘We should have come earlier.’
‘Yes, it’s a shame,’ I shouted back untruthfully.
We fought our way out into the street and staggered back to the hotel, where Terry left me. I found Jacquie looking revoltingly fresh and rested after her bath.
‘Did you have a nice drink?’ she asked.
I did not even deign to reply, but lay down on the bed and closed my eyes.
I was just drifting off into a pleasant doze when there was a knock on the door and Brian Bell appeared, with an Organising gleam in his eye.
‘Hullo,’ he said brightly, ‘feeling more rested?’
‘I feel,’ I said bitterly, ‘as if I had just been rescued by the skin of my teeth from an exceptionally large butt of Malmsey.’
‘Good,’ said Brian, not really listening. ‘Now, as we have to make an early start tomorrow and as this will be your last chance to see them, I thought you might like to run down and see the wrybills. We’ve got time before the TV show.’
One of the basic rules of life, I have found, is that you never learn anything unless you confess your ignorance. Say that you don’t know and people fall over themselves to teach you or show you and within next to no time all is vouchsafed to you. I applied this philosophy now.
‘What is a wrybill?’ I asked.
Brian’s round blue eyes became even more rounded at this confession of my ignorance, but he was too polite to say anything.
‘It’s a small wading bird,’ he explained carefully, as to a mentally defective child of two, ‘and it gets its name from the fact that its beak is twisted to one side. They’re only found in New Zealand and there are not very many of them left – I should think the total population is about five thousand but we haven’t done a proper count on them. There’s a small colony of them just down the coast from here and I thought we could nip down and see them.’
The idea of seeing a bird with a beak that bent sideways, even to a naturalist in my condition, was irresistible, and so in a very short time we had left ‘the outskirts of Auckland behind and were driving through the countryside. As we drove further and further a deep depression settled on me, for the landscape was exactly the pleasant, gently undulating type of countryside you can find on the Dorset–Devon borders: lush green grassy hillsides, daisy-speckled with flocks of sheep; small, neatly hedged fields, with their windbreaks of small copses; even the birds that flew up from the side of the road were starlings, blackbirds, thrushes, and high above us a skylark was hung, singing his evening song. To have travelled so far and so eagerly from England only to find yourself in another England seemed to me a refinement of torture which – on top of the beer – was almost unendurable. By the time we were bumping down a rough track towards the coast I was in a mood of black depression and was beginning to wonder why we had come to New Zealand in the first place. We might just as well have stayed at home if all we were going to see was blackbirds and skylarks.
Brian eased the Land-Rover through a flock of sheep who scattered before us, their fleeces wobbling as they ran, and then brought the vehicle to rest by a hedge. Beyond the hedge spread an area of rough, tussocky ground, beyond that a bare, flat area of dried mud, then a shingle beach and the grey uninviting sea. Normally, Brian explained, the Wrybills spent their time feeding on a long shingle spit to the left of us, but at high tide when the spit was covered, they moved inland to the flat muddy area that we could see directly in front of us. We strained our eyes but as far as we could see there was no bird life in sight. Brian, muttering the outraged mutters of an Organiser whose Organisation has broken down, moved slowly down the hedge and we followed him. A stiff, cold breeze had now sprung up, accompanied by a mild drizzle, and I began to think longing thoughts of warm baths and soft beds. Suddenly Brian stopped and lifted his field-glasses.
‘Ha!’ he barked triumphantly, ‘there they are. A little out of position, but they’re there.’
He pointed and I focused my glasses at the area he indicated.
At first all I could see was a large expanse of uninspiring grey mud, apparently completely devoid of any life whatsoever. Then I saw what at first glance appeared to be a grey, gossamer-like shawl of large dimensions, performing a sort of whirligig motion on the mud. On close examination this turned out to be a tightly packed conglomeration of small birds, all performing some strange gyrations that kept them in almost constant motion yet on exactly the same spot. The range was too far to see exactly what they were doing, so we moved cautiously through the tussocky area of rough ground that separated us from them, and eventually managed to get within about two hundred feet without apparently causing them the slightest alarm. Then we could see dearly what they were doing, and it was one of the most extraordinary group actions I have seen performed by birds.
The wrybills were small (about the size of a ringed plover), bluish-grey on the upper parts and white below, with a white stripe across the forehead and across the top of the eye, and a very neat black bib under the chin. The small beaks were all bent from left to right like a bill-hook, and this, for some extraordinary reason, combined with their neatly domed heads and dark eyes, made them look as if they all had snub noses. But it was their actions that fascinated me even more than their unique beak formation. There were about fifty of them and they covered an area some thirty feet by twenty, all facing into the wind and all standing on one leg.
I noticed that each bird kept some twelve inches or so away from its neighbours. They would stand there, shuffling their feathers and blinking, balancing their frail bodies against the wind, looking incredibly mournful. Then suddenly, and – as far as I could see – for no particular reason, one of them would hop forward (still on one leg) some six inches or so. This would, of course, destroy the careful territory arrangement of the whole group, and so all the birds nearest to the one that had moved would have to move too and, in turn, all the ones nearest to them would have to move, and so on. Thus, periodically, the whole conglomeration would be in motion yet the group as a whole remained exactly where it was. However carefully I watched them I could not see any valid reason for this sudden outbreak of movement; they were not displaying, nor were they feeding. They just stood there like a group of dispirited, poverty-stricken orphans, and every so often – to relieve the tedium – they would break into this weird game of hopscotch. Brian said it was thought that the strange shape of the wrybill’s beak was to assist it in feeding. With this curious bent beak, it can slide it more easily under stones in search of the tiny crustaceans and other sea life on which it lives.
We watched the cold, shuffling, hopscotching crowd of wrybills for about an hour, and during that time there had been immense activity within the group, yet the group as a whole had hardly moved more than a yard or so from where we had first seen them. Fascinating though they were to watch, time was getting short and so we reluctantly climbed back into the Land-Rover and drove back through fine drizzle into Auckland. I felt strangely comforted by my sight of the wrybills; they were, I felt, an omen that perhaps we were going to see some interesting things in New Zealand after all.
Geysers, Wekas and Kakas
Should we meet with a jubjub, that desperate bird,
We shall need all our strength for the job!