Show Me a Huia!

by Chris Barfoot

  The conversation was not going anywhere. “No idea.”

  “Do you remember that backcountry Northland farmer who got all that publicity in the press a few years ago about his law suit with the local iwi about the wahi tapu on his farm? He belonged to some obscure Christian sect and refused to allow them on to his land to perform their rituals – which he regarded as superstition. He even built a pigsty on their sacred hill and refused to take it down. Then when he tried to sell the farm to pay his legal bills, no one would buy it because of the dispute. He became so paranoid about the iwi that he spent all his money on petitions and suits to Government and local councils and letters to everyone he could think of. The trouble was he was so one-eyed that in the end no one listened to him. Finally, it was believed he took his own life. Well, that was Caleb Hawthorne.”

  “Couldn’t his son have given him advice?”

  “Probably too stubborn to accept it.”

  “But what does all this tell us about Sir Charles?”

  “He could be Prime Minister if he chose, but he loves acting more. They say he can be both Falstaff and King Lear, both comic and tragic. Have you seen him in court? It’s all acting, but great entertainment. Just like his lectures. And have you heard him laugh?” His colleague looked at his watch. “Sorry, I have a lecture. Thanks for the coffee.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Royal Bird was the much-awaited TV documentary.

  At seven o’clock on Tuesday night, stretched out on the settee in her Orakei unit, Kate watched it – together with most of the nation and many people round the world.

  The opening scene depicted wild, misty ranges with a soundtrack of the calls of bellbirds, tui, kiwi, moreporks and pigeons. During the bird song the camera zoomed in on punga fronds, huge blooms of rata, cabbage tree flowers, and fruiting branches of berry-bearing trees and shrubs – miro, karaka and puriri.

  The bird song then gave way to an action song, the Song of the Huia, composed specially and sung by the staff and pupils of Queen Victoria School in Parnell. During its singing in the school hall, two of the pupils, dressed up as huia, acted the song which told how the huia disappeared then miraculously came back to life.

  After that a distinguished looking white-haired man was interviewed. He was standing on the bridge over a large, swiftly flowing river, wearing a head-dress with huia feathers and leaning on a carved tokotoko. Beyond the swirling swollen waters and the log-strewn rocky shingle banks loomed the forbidding outline of a great mountain range.

  “May I introduce you to viewers?” the interviewer asked.

  “Just call me Eruera.”

  “I understand the huia was found on your land.”

  “I stand here on the Motu River which is our river as Whanokao is our mountain. The western side of the Raukumara Ranges between them is our tribal land, the land belonging to Te Whanau-a-Apanui. We hold the land from Tane and Papatuanuku, the forest and the earth.”

  “I believe the huia is the Maori royal bird.”

  “It is the symbol of chieftainship, of rangatiratanga, shown by the headdress I am wearing. The number of feathers are an indication of rank. There is a saying ‘Maka iho te kotuku te huia hei whakapaipai mona’.”

  “Would you mind explaining that for our viewers?”

  “‘Put the feathers of the kotuku and the huia as ornaments for him’. The kotuku and the huia are both birds which belong to the highest levels of the heavens. The kotuku is the bird of wisdom, the huia the bird of authority. Queen Victoria, for example, was given the kotuku emblem.”

  “Perhaps some of our present leaders could do with that emblem,” the interviewer smiled. “Would you tell us now what you are doing about the huia?”

  “We have had a ceremony to welcome it back to the land of the living,” he said gently. “We will be calling a hui at Te Kaha to decide on its kaitiakitanga, its guardianship.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to keep it for yourselves?” he was asked.

  “Though it has been discovered on our land and is therefore our taonga and a member of our iwi, we are trustees for the royal bird and are pleased to share its mana.”

  The genial, big-jowled, smiling face of the Minister of Forests, Sir Robert Roydhouse, then appeared against the books and the panelled wall of his office in Parliament. A New Zealand flag hung prominently behind his desk. Proudly he read a carefully worded message from Queen Elizabeth II.

  “The circumstances which led to the extinction of this magnificent bird have been long regretted by all. May its rediscovery lead to a rekindling of the mana of the great Maori people. May this people whose partnership with the Crown is enshrined once and for all in the Treaty of Waitangi ever hold fast the riches of their heritage in the beautiful land of Aotearoa-New Zealand.”

  “How many people are watching this programme?” he was asked by the interviewer.

  “As you no doubt know, the international media interest has been considerable,” he replied.

  “Do you think the huia is more popular than the All Blacks?”

  Sir Robert laughed. “Looks like it – at the moment.”

  “Do you mind if I touch on another subject. Many of our viewers are disturbed about the highway hold-ups and the fact that no arrests have been made. Some of the perpetrators are said to be claiming rangatiratanga for their actions. Is there any connection with the huia discovery?”

  “None whatsoever. The Maori people are totally behind us and completely reject any connection with the hold-ups.”

  “So your message is that in New Zealand all races are united in environmental protection?” said the interviewer.

  Beneath the New Zealand flag, the broad, chubby face lit up with an enormous grin.

  “Absolutely.”

  Now the interviewer introduced Kevin Carr. He was sitting on a log against a background of native bush, a short, insignificant-looking man with a pencil moustache, probably in his mid-thirties. Apparently very shy, he avoided looking at the camera and appeared to be reading prepared notes. As a member of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand, he spoke initially of his extensive research into the huia and said that it had long been his ambition to rediscover it. He described the Society’s stringent requirements for the authentication of rare bird discoveries and showed how meticulous he had been in following these requirements in his report. The report had been made direct to the Director-General who had flown up from Wellington to Rotorua. He had been gratified when Dr Holcroft not only accepted his report, but immediately gazetted the whole of the Waitoa Valley as a huia sanctuary. He then gave from his rare bird report the date, the time of day, the state of the weather, especially the visibility, and described the bird, its size, colour, physical description, eating, walking and flying habits and its call. He described his camera and the setting he had used as well as the magnification of his telescope.

  There appeared on the screen the photograph of the huia he had rediscovered. Kate saw that it was a female huia with the longer beak, and it was perched on what appeared to be a fuchsia bough. For a moment the strange thought passed through her mind that she had seen it before.

  “Would you describe the actual sighting, please, Kevin?”

  “The first thing I noticed was some unusual pecking marks on an old rimu log, the sort of log where you get a lot of huhu grubs. I immediately stopped and listened. Then I heard an unusually rich flute-like whistle. I called to Harry Wilson, my assistant wildlife adviser, and we both lay down behind the log. I adjusted my camera and telescope and then we covered ourselves with as much foliage as possible. Although I had never heard the sound before, I found it quite easy to imitate. Immediately after I called, a bird flew down spreading its white-tipped tail feathers and landed about twenty feet away on a low branch. It was a female bird, and seemed to be looking round for what she thought was her mate. I focussed the telescope on her and managed to get one camera shot, but as soon as the huia heard the click it flew off. Harry saw it too, but unfortunately, whe
n we brought the rest of the party, we could not entice it again although we called several times.”

  “Could you make the sound of the huia for viewers,” asked the interviewer.

  He pursed his lips, and uttered a rather ordinary whistle.

  If I were a huia, I wouldn’t have been fooled, thought Kate.

  If he had been Sir Walter Buller, he would have shot it and brought it back. Kevin could only bring a photo. What a magnificent sight, she thought – all that rich blue-black plumage, its bright orange lappets at the base of the beak and the long spreading tail with its band of white at the end.

  She looked more carefully at the photo and again it looked familiar yet not familiar.

  Then suddenly she realised what it resembled. On the desk in her study was a picture – Keulemans’ plate in the 1967 edition of Buller’s Birds. She looked at it every day.

  How odd!

  The interviewer was now talking to the Director-General, Dr Holcroft, in the Forestry offices in Wellington. Behind him were photos of the takahe, the saddleback, the black petrel and brown kiwi, all in their natural habitat. He was a short, dry, scholarly-looking man, and his head and eyes had a habit of darting about in quick bird-like movements.

  “Why do you think the huia was found in this valley?”

  “The remoteness and ruggedness of the situation indicate that predators, especially the Norwegian rat, may not have penetrated there.”

  “What measures have you taken to protect the huia?”

  “I have set up a rigorous exclusion zone in the Waitoa Valley and have withdrawn the new management plan which envisaged further tracks, huts, helipads and tourist flight licences in the surrounding Raukumara.”

  “So this is a change of policy from that of your predecessor. Won’t this affect the potential tourist income and possible income from mining licences?”

  “The huia is a treasure beyond price.”

  “Will the public object to being excluded from the Waitoa?”

  “The Raukumara are a wilderness area and very few trampers go in there because of the mountainous terrain and the difficulty of access.”

  “What about the process of consultation? You seem to have acted very quickly on this discovery.”

  “The process here was probably less complicated than if it had been found in the Forest Park because Te Whanau-a- Apanui, who are the landowners and acting as a trustee for all hapu and iwi, immediately requested the protection of their royal bird. That is why I flew up to Rotorua on December 30th and interviewed the ornithologists concerned personally to confirm the discovery. Following this I spoke again to Whanau Apanui who after taking legal advice agreed with my view that the discovery should be handled at national level in consultation with all interested parties including the whanau representatives and officers of the Department of Forestry.”

  “Would the huia be safer on an island where there are no predators?”

  “We would have to consult the iwi on that. There is a problem because as yet we have identified only one female.”

  “So what is the programme now?”

  “I have already appointed a ranger, Mr Dick Burton, who is based in the Rotorua Wildlife office. I have asked our Wildlife offices in every area to appoint advocates and to work with the Kaupapa Atawhai to formalise iwi involvement. I am establishing a scientific workshop with a view to initiating a National Recovery Plan. I have already spoken to one of my corporate sponsors about such a plan and they have agreed to commit funds for this purpose.”

  “Dr Holcroft, you don’t mind if I ask you a question about something which is concerning a lot of people.”

  The Director-General, a precise man, frowned at this departure from the subject of the interview.

  “We asked Sir Robert what he thought about the hold-up perpetrators, in particular the Maori republics, claiming the rangatiratanga of the huia as their justification. What are your views?”

  There was a remarkable change in the little man. The veins stood out on his forehead, the bird-like eyes flashed with sudden anger and he seemed to have trouble in enunciating his words:

  “Those kind of people have no rights!”

  No need for him to go as far as that, she thought.

  A ginger-haired man with a green shirt and a rugged, weather-beaten face was strolling with the interviewer along a boardwalk beside a cascading stream. All around them was luxuriant native bush. Every now and then the green-shirted man would stop, put a finger across his lips and point up into the trees.

  “You’ve been appointed ranger for the sanctuary, Dick. Why do you think we need a sanctuary?”

  “Open the place up for tourists and you close it for the wildlife,” he replied. “There won’t be any birds for tourists to look at. It’s about time people realised that birds need privacy as well as humans.”

  “I suppose some people will say we’re locking up all this forest just for the birds. There could be a lot of money in logging those trees.”

  “That’s just a lot of crap! For hundreds of years man has been behaving like a lunatic, looting, plundering and raping. He should realise that when he destroys his environment, he destroys part of himself, not only his shelter, his food, his water, his soil, but also his way of life, his recreation, his refreshment. Man can run up a house, a factory, and a concrete apartment block within weeks or months. But see how long it takes to create a forest. Yet man can destroy it in days. Who would ever think of destroying the Taj Mahal to build a fibrolite bach? In our monstrosities of cities, we play canned music and listen to ghetto blasters. Yet go into the bush and listen to the bellbirds chiming. Hear the surf crashing on a West Coast beach, a mountain stream singing. Listen to the wind in a pine forest, the cicadas in the tea tree, the crickets on a summer evening in the short sheep grass by the sea.”

  At the beginning Kate wondered why the TV team had not cut what was obviously going to be more of an oration than an answer to a question. Then she saw how they had used it. First, the screen filled with a beautiful forest glade with branches arching over like the fan-vaulted ceiling of a great cathedral. Echoing through it like a heavenly carillon was the morning chorus of the bellbirds. The scene then shifted to a pine forest with its ferny floor dappled in sunlight and the sound of the wind softly sighing. Great rollers crashed in on a long white beach and the spray drifted against rearing cliffs where crimson pohutukawa clung. Above the cliffs were grassy ridges where sheep were peacefully grazing. And as background music came the calm and majestic strains of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony.

  Great! she thought.

  CHAPTER 17

  Kate had secured a scoop when she had invited Kevin to speak to a specially called meeting of the Alpine Sports Club at St Mark’s Hall in Remuera. It was the night after the documentary. Though some members were away on the Raukumara search and others on their South Island tramping and mountaineering trips, all the seats were taken and there were some standing at the rear.

  When Kevin Carr walked down the aisle to the platform with the President, the sturdy, weather-beaten, normally phlegmatic trampers, mountaineers and skiers stood up and clapped, and some even shouted and whistled.

  He was known to be a shy man and club members realised that the meeting would be an ordeal for him. They did not expect an enthusiastic oration and were not surprised when he read his speech which turned out to be the same that he had given on TV.

  Kate, regardless of her little niggle of the night before, resolved to enjoy the excitement of the meeting. After all, coincidences were not unusual.

  However, when the huia appeared on the screen she scrutinised it carefully. It was the same photo as used in the documentary. This time she compared it with her own postcard reproduction of Keulemans’ painting which she had brought in her handbag.

  The background of Kevin’s huia was native forest, there was no male huia, the bough was at a different angle and the bird was looking to the left instead of the right. But the bird itself and its sta
nce on the bough did not just resemble the Keulemans bird.

  It was identical.

  It wasn’t just odd. It was extraordinary.

  After the talk the clapping went on a long time. Looking round a sea of excited faces she glimpsed Eleanor and Leone McTaggart.

  She darted over to them. “Come on, you lot. Get a cup of tea and talk to Kevin.” Suddenly she noticed how pale Eleanor looked. “So good of you to come,” she said.

  Eleanor said quietly. “We’re going home.”

  “Why, what’s the matter?”

  Leone broke out angrily. “Didn’t you hear on the news tonight? It’s an absolute disgrace! The government’s decided that the trampers have gone into the sanctuary, and because they don’t want to disturb the huia, they’ve called off the search.”

  Kate stopped short. Suddenly, all the exhilaration of organising people drained from her and she didn’t want to dart anywhere. She put her arm around Eleanor and they walked slowly out of the hall.

  On her return she heard the supper conversation buzzing. “And this is just the beginning. We ought to establish sanctuaries for every endangered bird in New Zealand. We’ve done it for the takahe and the kakapo and the brown kiwi and the black petrel, and now the huia. What about the saddleback and the kokako? They’ll be wiped out too if we don’t act now.”

  She made her way over to the corner where Kevin was hemmed in by a group of enthusiastic club members. “Wasn’t it great,” one of them was saying, “that the Government acted so quickly to set up a sanctuary. It really shows how lucky we are to have a man like Gerald Holcroft as Director-General.”

  “I expect he realised that the huia could have been exterminated before an official team got in there,” said another. “And he recognised that Kevin probably knew more about the huia than anyone else in New Zealand.”

  “Yes, I had done my research carefully,” said Kevin, “and the Government regarded the protection of the huia as a matter of the gravest national importance.”