A 2-week-old kōkako chick brought down from its nest for banding as part of a conservation project in the Hūnua Ranges that's been running for the past 30 years. Photo / David St George
Once one of our most endangered native birds, the kōkako is now thriving in the Hūnua Ranges, thanks to a landmark conservation project that began 30 years ago.
In the end, it all came down to Rod and Rachel. Two birds named after a shaggy-haired rocker and his Kiwi supermodel wife.
Without them, the distinctive blue-wattled kōkako – already extinct in the South Island – would have gone the way of its distant relative, the huia, in Auckland’s Hūnua Ranges. In 1994, they were the sole breeding pair.
The fact that Rod Stewart and Rachel Hunter split a few years later might have seemed a bad omen, but apparently their namesakes had itchy feet, too.
“At the time, it seemed like Rod and Rachel would last forever,” says Lenny van Heugten, whose book Stories from the Kōkako Management Area was published last year to mark the project’s 30th anniversary.
“But the birds didn’t stay together, either. They partner-swapped and I think the population is better for it, because it means there’s more genetic diversity.”
The kōkako recovery programme in the Hūnua Ranges Regional Park, southeast of Auckland, is one of New Zealand’s most successful conservation projects.
Thirty years on, after a huge push to control predators, there are now 259 breeding pairs and the first chicks of the season are about to leave their nest.
In the early days, when numbers were still desperately low, some volunteers working to stop kōkako vanishing from the Hūnuas could go more than a decade without spotting one.
Even today, it’s a rare privilege to see these native birds up close, although alert visitors to the park might hear their distinctive call echoing through the bush.
Nineteenth-century explorer Charles Douglas described the kōkako’s haunting cry as “indescribably mournful”, like the whistling of wind through the neck of an empty whisky bottle – “sadly suggestive of departed spirits”.
When the Herald joined a recent banding expedition in the Hūnuas, the indignant huffs made by two gangly young chicks extracted from their nest high up in the canopy of a tawa tree sounded more like a dog barking.
According to Māori legend, it was Māui who gave kōkako their long, spindly legs – enabling them to scamper nimbly along the tree branches – as a reward for bringing him water as he fought the sun.
And who could blame the chicks for literally kicking up a fuss? It’s hard to retain a sense of dignity when you’re flipped on your back and someone comes at you with a pair of pliers and a tube of superglue.
The birds look so delicate it’s a little nerve-racking to watch, but Auckland Council senior conservation ranger Miranda Bennett likes their spirited response.
“The fight is good,” she says, approvingly. “Then we know the chicks are healthy and strong.”
Pest control is a relentless battle in the Hūnuas, a vast tract of bush surrounded by farmland. A dedicated network of some 200km of trap lines in the Kōkako Management Area protects a central ring of 2000ha, with a wider grid fanning out to 6000ha.
Thanks to the work of conservation staff and a dedicated team of volunteers, bird numbers have recovered so strongly that only half a dozen sample nests are now monitored each season.
A faltering number of eggs or surviving chicks could mean predator numbers are tracking up. So these scruffy bundles of soft grey fluff are treasured cargo for expert handler Dave Bryden, who’s among a handful of certified kōkako banders working across the North Island.
Clipping into a climbing harness, he winches himself up to a nest some 12m above the forest floor, via a rope secured to the tree’s upper branches.
Transporting one bird at a time in a black drawstring bag, he carefully descends to the “operating table” laid out below.
Each chick is fitted with a numbered steel band and a unique combination of coloured bands – the joins secured with superglue – so they can be identified through binoculars.
The banding is a fiddly process and needs to be done within a narrow window when the birds are about 2 weeks old. Too young and the rings will slip off their legs; too old and they might be alert enough to take fright at the intrusion and try to jump from the nest.
You can still see the tiny white temporary tooth chicks use to chip their way out of the egg and as they mature, the pinky lavender colour of their wattles will darken to an electric blue.
Amanda Rogers, Bryden’s banding partner, weighs in the second chick at a healthy 139g, slightly heavier than its sibling (whether they’re male or female will become apparent at a later stage).
“Just make a little nest with your hands,” she tells a woman who’s given the wee bird to hold. “It will wriggle and then settle in.”
Within moments, the chick has closed its eyes and seems to have nodded off to sleep. “What does it feel like?” I ask her. “It feels precious,” she says. “That’s what it feels like.”
Overhead, two adult kōkako are watching on, with what seems like curiosity rather than distress.
While tūī and kererū crash through the foliage, kōkako are comparatively poor fliers, gliding or hopping between the upper branches where they’re tricky to spot.
Unlike other species that might abandon their chicks, kōkako are happy to welcome back their banded babies – although Bennett says they’re lazy homemakers who build very messy nests.
Robin LeGrice began volunteering here 16 years ago, after her children started school. Every week, she comes in all sorts of weather to fill bait stations, check traps and help keep the tracks clear and marked. Over the years, she’s felt the forest come alive around her.
“Everything benefits, all the other birds and vertebrates,” she says. “You can walk through other bits of bush in the wider Hūnua that don’t have the pest control and it’s comparatively quiet.”
Especially in winter, conditions can be treacherous, and all volunteers carry satellite radios and locator beacons. In March, a conservation volunteer laying bait in Pureora Forest, near Taupō, went missing after becoming separated from her group and was never found.
Occasionally they come across feral pigs or deer, but LeGrice reckons the most dangerous encounters are with German wasps, which are aggressive when disturbed. “The only option you have is to run.”
There’s great camaraderie among the 80-100 volunteers on the Hūnua roster, which includes an aeronautical engineer, a lecturer at the University of Auckland’s medical school and former Counties-Manukau District Health Board chief David Clarke.
Now retired, Clarke laughs when I ask if people are surprised to see a corporate high-flyer getting his hands dirty in the bush.
“There’s a whole range of us here,” he says. “You’ve all got one focus, one cause. It’s not like the political complexities of a large corporation. Everyone puts in the mahi. They’re good people and it’s all great fun.”
A keen tramper and mountain biker, Clarke has walked the length of New Zealand on the Te Araroa Trail so being immersed in nature has always played an important part in his life.
After six years of being involved in pest control programmes, he’s seen a significant increase in birdlife in the Hūnua Ranges. “Particularly if you’re up there at dawn, it’s just shattering.”
Still, he warns there’s no room for complacency – and predators aren’t the only threat. A paper published this month in Science, a highly regarded scientific journal, found New Zealand and Australian species are among the most vulnerable to climate change, which could drive extinction rates above 25%.
The kōkako count across the North Island now tops 4000, recovering from around 400 at the lowest point. However, the only self-sustaining populations are on predator-free islands or in mainland forests, like Hūnua, where there’s intensive predator control. In Northland, locals have told Clarke, the numbers are declining.
“The bird is still under a lot of pressure, so it’s not over,” he says. “You could lose this in a generation. It’s not hard to regress and in this modern day, that would be just unacceptable.”
Right now, the signs look good. Last year, Auckland Council increased its natural environment targeted rate, with close to 70% of public submissions in favour of paying more if the money is invested in areas such as reserves, birds, pests and trapping.
In the Hūnua Ranges, a halo effect has seen several species spilling out of the core managed project area, which is also home to Hochstetter frogs, North Island robins, bellbirds (korimako), kākā, kererū and long-tailed bats (pekapeka).
In April, a kōkako was spotted for the first time in decades near Hūnua Falls, a popular part of the park some distance away.
That’s an exciting development. If the birds eventually settle there, notes Lenny van Heugten, they’ll be much more accessible for Aucklanders to see.
Van Heugten grew up with her Dutch parents on a small farm that looks across the valley to the Hūnua Ranges.
A love of the natural world was so embedded into her childhood that she once asked her parents if God and Mother Nature were married.
By her early teens, she was out clearing possum traps with her father, Willow, a longtime member of the volunteer conservation team. Her mother, Marleen, runs a local bird rescue centre.
Diagnosed with scoliosis (curvature of the spine), van Heugten is no longer able to lug heavy backpacks of bait through the forest.
Now working in community pest control and ecosystem restoration, she says recording the stories of people involved in the kōkako recovery not only provides a historical record but inspiration for others to follow their lead.
Despite its success, van Heugten echoes Clarke’s caution that our ecosystems remain precariously balanced.
She describes both backyard and council-backed conservation projects as “suppressing the tide” for our native species, until technology enables the vision of Predator Free 2050 to be fully realised.
“This is a really critical period,” she says. “There’s some sort of spiritual connection we feel with these birds and for now, it’s about holding that ground.”
Joanna Wane is an award-winning feature writer on the NZ Herald’s Lifestyle Premium team, with a special focus on social issues and the arts.
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