Rock Wren in the Otira

I have recieved these great reports about rock wren sightings in the Otira Valley. As one of our only alpine highways this is definitely one of the best places to view Tuke. It is also a place where there is talk of doing more to protect and understand them.

In fact it is more than talk, the Arthurs Pass Community Centre protecting Raroa in the Bealey and surrounds no doubt aids the rock wren as does the trapping and 1080 programmes down the Otira. Soon stoat traps may be moving up the Otira to again secure this valley for Whio, Raroa and Tuke!

James, reliable report from Robin Delamere, ex-DOC of 6 rock wren in Upper Otira Valley map reference 898110, 11.30 am, 9/1/2010, fine cool weather. Appeared to be pair with 4 immature young ones. Cheers.

Hi Jamie, attached are two images (adult) I took this afternoon of Rock Wren in the upper Otira Valley. These are part of a family of 6 (2A 4J) found on that "island" section of moraine just above the "boulder garden" - as streams run both sides they might of created their own predator free paradise. Their nest is under some large rocks in the centre of their territory (they were circling it about 10m radius), they have used chamois hair taken from a decaying carcass about 400m higher up. I delivered them a Weka (road kill) and placed it high on the cliff above them in a predator free area with 360º clear view around - one of the Juv's followed me up there - be interesting to see if they use it.

There is another pair (no Juvs seen) in that area of scrub/rock opposite the scree that runs off Philistine Bluff (about 400m downstream of bridge), they seem to be on the true-right (but that just might be their curiosity of me).

Allison Ballance and Tuke

I haven't been active on the Tuke front for a while, but a trip to Arthurs Pass where I plan to get to know in more detail the Tuke and their mountain basins is staring me in the face.

I found this fantastic piece of writing by Allison Ballance while googling around. This piece won Ballance the 2007 Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing. It is a great meditation on place and change. Ballance connects with the environment, specifically the mountains of the Southern Alps but in doing so she maintains her perspective. She can see how the mountains like us change, sometimes quickly.

Ballances two main themes are glaciers, and yes tuke, or Rock Wren. Here are a couple of teasers...

I fell in love with the rock wrens, which an early New Zealand climber described as ‘looking for all the world like boiled potatoes with their jackets on, set up on hairpins and let loose on the rocks.’ I nicknamed every bird in our study area Bob, for their endearing habit of constant bobbing

there is a big difference between the potential effects of global warming on rock wrens and glaciers. The worst case scenario is that both will disappear, but the similarity ends there. The rock wrens are irreplaceable – they will join four other ancient New Zealand wrens in the ranks of the extinct. Glaciers are made, not of flesh and blood, but of frozen water; if the world cools, they have the ability to rise from the dead.

Rock Wren Nest's

A correspondent sent me through this extract from Herbert Guthrie Smith, a famous New Zealand naturalist and author of the classic "Tutira".

"Guthrie–Smith, H., Sorrows and Joys of a New Zealand Naturalist, 1936.

Extract
=====

The orifice of the nest pierced into a fibrous mass of overhanging roots. Partly within and partly beneath this densely matted live growth was built the nest. As we discovered afterwards when ransacking the deserted structure, its remarkable bulk was composed of skeleton leaves, finely shredded grass, and feathers. On this comfortable cushion — the feathers were laid most thickly on the bottom of the nest, or, rather, within this overarching bower — reposed the chicks.

Of the 791 feathers counted, over seven hundred were those of Ocydromus australis (weka), and perhaps O. finschi and O. brachypterus. There were feathers also of considerable numbers of the kakapo and kiwi, showing how high these species ascend in their alpine wanderings; there were also a few kea and a few pigeon feathers. When counted by us, in spite of the deluges of the two preceding days, the interior of the nest and the feathers themselves were fresh and sweet, they betrayed no signs of mould or damp.

Unlike the bush wren which is constantly taking dry feathers in and wet feathers out both during incubation of the eggs and rearing of the young, the rock wren seemed to prefer to make a thorough job at the beginning. Warmth and dryness are obtained once for all by bulk of material, the natural oil of the feathers massed together helping to exclude any dampness that might penetrate, firstly through the live root mass, and, secondly, through the exterior shield of shredded grass and skeleton leaves.

Really interesting stuff. It would be tempting to think that the absence of weka, the vacumn cleaner of the New Zealand forest might have a positive aspect for rock wren, but maybe not! Below is a photo we took of a weka on a recent trip to Kapiti Island.

Tuke in NZ Geographic

I just finished reading the great article "The Also Wren" by Kennedy Warne in the New Zealand Geographic (Num 97, May - June 2009). Warne's article traverses much of the relevant Rock Wren terrain in time and space. From Guthrie Smiths encounters near Milford to the work undertaken by Sue Heath and now Megan Willans in the Murchison Mountains. From the New Zealand wrens in history to the efforts of modern day philanthtopists like Barry Dent and Sue Freitag preventing the rock wren becoming history.

Most importantly though the article examines the trends in time and space. A rock wren reduction of 44% in 30 years in the Murchison Mountains study area, and an overall according to an analysis undertaken by Heath and Peter Gaze of DOC "the rock wrens range had decreased by a quarter since 1984".

Not wanting to take two much from the article which is studded with great quotes from the likes of Herbert Guthrie Smith and great photos, I thought I might just reveal what it says about the meanings of the rock wrens two Maori names...piwauwau and tuke... "Piwauwau means "little complaining bird" - a touch unfortunate, given its merry tweet. Another name for the rock wren is tuke, which can mean elbow, a possible but misleading reference to the rock wren's prominent stripe above the eye (which is by no means elbow-angled), or twitch, a logical allusion to the wren's distinctive bobbing up and down"...Tuke it is then!

Wilderness Magazine Article

A link to the great wilderness magazine article on Tuke by Liz Sherwood

Predator Research

The idea of this posting or thread will be to gradually collate the mouse research that may be relevant to eventually protecting some rock wren habitat...this is a work in progress!! If anyone stumbles on this and can provide any more information to help me out please leave a comment...just an attempt by a layman to get his head around the issues!

Mice:

Potential conservation impacts of high-altitude small mammals: a field study and literature review...Includes very good info on mice diet

Researchers Measure Extent of Mouse Menace: Landcare Research scientists investigate mouse abundance in the context of beech masting...press release

ERADICATING HOUSE MICE FROM ISLANDS: SUCCESSES, FAILURES AND THE WAY FORWARD....good references to check out further

link to mouse trapping discussion on the wildlife management forum

Mustelids:

Movement, diet, and relative abundance of stoats in an alpine habitat
Smith, Jamieson 2003 - suggests independent populations beech/alpine and stoat switch to weta from mice in event of mouse decline after mast cycle

Selection of alpine grasslands over beech forest by stoats (Mustela erminea) in montane southern New Zealand

Dispersal and survival of juvenile feral ferrets
Lancare Research scientists investigate the dispersal of young ferrets and provide some management recomendations...journal article

Just how unique are the New Zealand wrens?

I have been periodically searching around for interesting Tuke stories, or experiences to add to this blog. The general fruitless of this search, if you exclude the occasional encounters of bird tickers (I'm sure there is a term for this I can't remember!) with the much photographed Tuke of Homer Tunnel, has emphasised to me how little our worlds interact. We live down in our cities, venturing out only occasionally to poke our noses into the bush. They live up there in the alpine world, sheltering in the giant clumps of rock and hopping around alpine basins in the sun, just as they have been since the Southern Alps started rising. Indeed it seems that going back in time is necessary to understand one of the reasons for why the tuke is so special.

Peter Gaze, a DOC Scientist in Nelson, plucked me an excerpt from "Consider the Birds - who they are and what they do" by Colin Tudge 2008. It begins to elucidate just how unique the tuke and its sister the titipounamu (or rifleman) are from an evolutionary perspective,

The New Zealand wrens, family Xenicidae should be treasured not simply as fine little birds but because of their unique evolutionary status. About 80 million years ago, so it seems, the world's first population of passerines split into two. One group evolved to become crows, shrikes, finches, swallows and all the rest - 6000 species of all shapes and way of life. All that remains of the other group is the New Zealand wrens."

Around 80 million years ago is about the same time that New Zealand (then a province of Antarctica) broke away from the great southern land "Gondwana". I only know this in detail because one of my current reads George Gibbs in "Ghosts of Gondwana" says so. Gibbs also notes the importance of the New Zealand wrens, here refered to as of the family Acanthisittidae...

A molecular study has revealed that our tiny acanthisittids possibly represent the closest surviving relict of the ancestral type of passerine bird

Now to be honest this doesn't really mean much to me at all, a layman in a bird mans world, but think of it this way. There are, or were, three endemic (only existing in New Zealand) vertebrate "orders", represented by the Moas, the Kiwis and the Tuatara. There are only nine endemic vertebrate families, these include our wattlebirds (eg kokako or saddleback), our family of frogs, and our special short-tailed bat of the family Mystacina. The frogs are an interesting comparison actually they have existed for a similar period of time to the wrens, have four existing species to the wrens two and three species already extinct to the wrens four.

We have 90 million years of history in our hands...

A Measurable Goal.

I'm happy now, I have a purpose and a measurable goal to help the Tuke. In 2009 I am going to run a campaign to attempt to have the Tuke elected as New Zealand's Bird of the Year.

The bird of the year has been run since 2005 by Forest and Bird and I checked in yesterday with Helen Bain, their communications manager in Wellington, to check on Tuke's voting history. Helen wished me luck, and told me I would need it.

"In 2008 (the Tuke) got 10 votes and in 2007 it got four. (I don’t have the figures before that.)"

So there is definite potential for progress!

I came to this goal the long way round, and it is only an intermediate step, because being more widely known in itself will not improve the endangered status of the Tuke. I originally was thinking about a predator trapping program in Arthurs Pass, specifically the Otira Basin, but there are complications with that, which need to be worked through, principally the effects of mice, which may be exacerbated, if stoats are trapped for - but that project is lurking in the background to be thought about and discussed more.

But its important to have a measurable goal and this is it for the meantime. Any strategies or ideas welcome that may ensure Tuke's election, but I have a few up my sleeve.