Monday 10th September - First full day of work on Tiri

It was freezing in the night. Despite wearing three pairs of socks, thermal trousers under my jammies, two fleeces and a woolly hat I could still not get warm!  This wasn’t conducive to getting a good night’s sleep and despite the early night I managed less than six hours of fitful slumber.  Checking my watch, yet again, it was 540am. Instead of tossing and turning for another hour or so I figured I could find some clothes in the dark, sneak out and go and hear most of the dawn chorus, so that’s what I did.  The lighthouse was still guiding the way for any passing ships (left) but it was light enough that I didn’t need a torch. 

The dawn view over to Rangitoto Island and the City of Auckland on the right

As recommended, I made haste to the third drinking station on the wattle track, made myself comfortable and soaked in the early morning sounds (the haunting high-pitched song is kokako):

It was relaxing lying there on my own with only the birds for company. I was even visited by another pair of kokako.  There was a great deal of bird activity as I headed back along the track, so I got myself some more quality snaps:

A pair of quail

View up to the bunkhouse from the Wattle track

Tricky to get a decent snap of a saddleback - this is the best I could do.... not too shabby!

I was back at the bunkhouse shortly after 7am in plenty of time to have a cup of tea and some breakfast before my agreed start time of 830am.  Hilz and I did our water trough route again and heading back past the rangers’ house I got a glimpse of my first wild takahe:

My first takahe

Similar in shape and mobility to a pukeko but larger and stockier, these birds were believed to be extinct for 50 years between 1898 and 1948 when they were rediscovered near Lake Te Anau on the South Island.  Still classified as endangered, these birds can currently only be found ‘wild’ on a few pest-free islands such as Tiri and in the Murchison Mountains down on the South Island, with only 347 individuals in existence as of October 2017. 

With rain forecast for the afternoon, we were saving our inside duties for then. For the rest of the morning we were tasked with doing some track clearing.  There were three separate lanes on the Hobbs track that needed cutting back. Sue suggested it would take us at least a couple of days to get them done, so best to start with the main artery track and work from there. No problem. Tooled up with blunt silky saws, some loppers and flax cutters, off we went.  Having not been shown what we were meant to be doing we started quite conservatively. After all, getting rid of too much foliage would be bad for the birds, right? Sue came down to see how we were getting on and gave us some direction – we needed to clear a minimum of 1 metre each side of the mown track and as high as we could reach. The aim was to make the track wide and high enough for the tractor to be able to get through down to the beach in the event of someone getting injured from a fall or the like. Better go back to the start and get a little bit more ruthless with our trimmings! Now we knew how much there was to do, progress was slow – we barely got 50m down the track before lunch time. We’ll crack on with it tomorrow. 

Heading back to the bunkhouse for refs, a pair of takahe were grazing in front of the building creating a perfect snapshot with the Hauraki Gulf and Rangitoto volcanic island in the background:

Takahe in front of the bunkhouse (room on the right is our room)

With no visitors until Wednesday, this afternoon’s task was the weekly deep clean of the visitors’ centre. De-cobwebbing, dusting, hoovering, window-cleaning and floor mopping gave us a good workout, but we were pleased with our efforts. I’m glad to be paired up with someone with a similar work-ethic. We both seem keen to do a good job whatever task is thrown at us. Hilary is a relief teacher, so she can pick and choose when to work whilst doing conservation projects in between. As long as she’s got enough work to make ends meet, of course.  Like me, she’s thinking about the possibility of a job in conservation and testing the waters to get some experience before deciding whether to jump in with both feet. We swapped stories about projects we’ve worked on and could help each other out with some contacts for the future.

As predicted, the evening was grey and rainy and so events within the bunkhouse were effectively a repeat of last night with the camera club reminiscing about the good ol’ days and discussing areas of the northland that I didn’t have a clue about.  I was exhausted so hoped for a better night’s sleep tonight.  Hilz had chanced upon a spare hot water bottle whilst searching for something else in the room. I was very grateful for the option to at least keep my feet warm tonight. With no heating in the bunkhouse at all, you need to resort to whatever you can lay your hands on!