One Godwit rises and calls

One of the moments never to be forgotten in elevent years of broadcasting was to observe the lift-off  from The Parengarenga Harbour of the big hearted kuaka. One moment of magic.

Like the waka that brought the ancestors here, the kuaka is one of a number of migratory birds that make an annual crossing of the Pacific to our shores but the two most revered by Maori are kuaka (godwit limosa lapponica) and pipiwharauroa (shining cuckoo chrysococcyx lucidus).

The godwit -  because at about this time each year they transform their body parts to take on a long haul across the Pacific. Right now they’re getting themselves ready for a flight of 18,000 kms non-stop. They are a protected species but still highly sought after by our Nga Puhi kin as a cuisine on any Nga Puhi table.  The late Rua Cooper, Tainui rangatira told me, “When our people came to Aotearoa, the flight of the kuaka showed them the way here.”

The New Zealand Herald, (29 March 2009) reported on the first leg of the long flight from Parengarenga Harbour to Alaska making a short stop-over to refuel in China before continuing their flight of another 3,000 kms.  The birds return to their breeding nests in Alaska, Siberia and Eastern Asia and leave our shores around late March 

 “The godwits,” Dr N. Bartley of Victoria University is reported as saying, “When they cut out from New Zealand, they were clinically obese, but lose about half their body weight before the migration.”

 Upon arriving in the tidal flats of the Yellow Sea off China and South Korea they would land with drooping wings, have a big drink and then stay around for a few days to refuel. 

 “It’s the equivalent of riding The Tour de France”, Dr Bartley said, “But keeping it up for nine days non-stop. The godwit would then head for Alaska where they are expected in mid-May.”

“In September they return, flying in a straight line across the Pacific Ocean to the New Zealand coast from Parengarenga Harbour in the Far North to Invercargill in the south.” Dr Bartley said that the surveillance project had been funded by the United States, interested in the birds’ movements because they were potential carriers of the dreaded H5N1 bird-flu virus to Alaska.

Annual population counts at major sites in New Zealand showed a decline in numbers.  The increasing reclamation of tidal mudflats in New Zealand and other coastal and geographical changes caused by dams were also affecting their habitats.  

American and New Zealand scientists working together have recently unlocked the secret of the godwit’s extraordinary migrations, “… the birds go on a binge, a feeding frenzy, before their long-haul until about 55 per cent of their weight is fat. They then reduce the size of their gut, kidney and liver by up to 25 per cent to compensate for the added weight. Obese with fuel, freed from the baggage of a heavy gut, the godwit are ready for the air.

 

(Transcript of radio broadcast,
Radio New Zealand 15 April 1992)

“E rere te manu e rere, rere atu …e.”

“It’s predawn … It’s Sunday April 15  … morning here on the white sands of Parengarenga Harbour where I’m joined by three elders,  one a kuia, Sana Murray of Te Aupouri, our mission to witness a miracle of Nature, the start of the long haul of the fat godwit to Alaska.  Hekenukumai Tawhiti Busby is another, grounded by research and experienced in blue water navigation, at his request we are here to make a radio documentary of the bird’s pre-flight habits but more importantly for me anyway, to record some of the traditional knowledge around the prodigious journey of these tiny birds.  The other is kaumatua Simon Snowden. Amongst us rangatahi.”   

 

“It’s one of those exquisite, calm April days when, (as one of my companions tell me), ‘… one has to thank the universe, and God for just being here and alive’. We’ve been on these white sands now three nights, couldn’t sleep much as the noise is deafening.  Busby, Murray and Snowden and rangatahi are standing facing the pre-dawn now and speaking with the birds now poised to go. While Snowden is reciting karakia, Busby turns and speaks into a microphone, ‘I think they’re set to take off this morning, they are somehow calmer today than other mornings.’ These waders have flocked here from as far away as The Bluff, Hastings, Ohiwa Harbour, Ohope, The Manukau Harbour and Kaipara at the start of ‘Te Hoki – the return home’, as Busby put it.

 

The birds flap and squawk through the night as though impatient, it seems to get going, more intense than in other nights sensing as it were that something was imminent. We sense it too. The tension is endemic; the sheer pull of the call of Nature.  However, this morning it’s less frantic, more subdued, quieter somehow as though something is about to happen.”

 

“The keening call of karanga rises above sand and surf, kuia Sana Murray greets the pre-dawn and the flock, and as the yellow streaks of light lifts the darkness, one bird is already in the air, calling, circling, lifting, turning, tilting, and diving as though urging the flock to stand by.  The flock firmly grounded, wings flapping as the beacon bird seems to search the horizon, probing, looking for a sign from above or within that clears the way for the lift off.  ‘Look,’ yells Busby …’, and here before our eyes; the magic moment we came to witness.”

 

 “Swift and sweet, the solitary bird is gone.  And as one, the flock rise as one and within a few holy minutes, maybe seconds they are here no more.  An extraordinary site of courage and heart!

 

In thirteen days they start arriving on The Yellow Sea in China.”

 

“Gone …”.

”Gone. Now silence as kuia, Sana sobs, “…Haere!”

One godwit rises

Above the rest …

Others to follow

To take wing

And once in flight

To soar.

Singing, singing, singing

“Koroo!  Koroo!  Koroo!”