Birdlands by Edin Whitehead
In Birdlands, Edin Whitehead, co-author of the popular The Brilliance of Birds, recounts the wondrous adventures she has had in the remote, uninhabited parts of Aotearoa, where myriads of birds live and wildlife dominates. She is a seabird scientist, a field biologist and a passionate photographer specialising in seabirds.
Edin is an intrepid traveller, undeterred by rough seas, freezing temperatures, searing winds, heavy rain, and walking through knee-deep mud. Ready to lie on her belly for hours on end to get the perfect shot.
‘Birdlands is about being present and observant in the world, about the wonder you can find when you look closely, and the joy I have taken from that time,' she writes.
I am entranced by her stunning, coloured photographs, many full-page, in which she has captured birds in so many different ways: engaging in courtship displays, having minor territorial fights, nesting, soaring in the skies, feeding, scurrying, foraging, and preening.
I am equally captivated by the stories she tells in such a lyrical way. They made me think of the Pūrākau ‘He korokoro tūi’ often used to describe someone with a beautiful voice.
Her book is divided into 5 sections:
1. The Subantarctic Islands.
2.Rekohu/Wharekauri/The Chatham Islands.
3. Rakiura/Stewart Island.
4. Te Waipounamu/ The South Island.
5. Tikapa Moana/ Te Moananui a Toi/The Hauraki Gulf.
Each section includes accounts of the journeys she took in that part of Aotearoa.
In the Subantarctic Islands, she visited Campbell Island, a seabird island with no human habitation. Here she joined a search for a rare subantarctic snipe. The bird life was abundant, but seeing so much plastic rubbish, which humans have thrown away, swirled in by the endless West Wind Drift of the Southern Ocean filled her with hot, helpless anger.
At Enderby Island, which was her first-ever boots-on-the-ground subantarctic experience, she was part of a small expedition group that circumnavigated the island on foot, finding wildlife at every turn. She writes:
There are sealions on the northern cliffs, and we wind through the herb fields to find pāngurunguru (northern giant petrel) chicks sitting fluffy and grumpy on nests. We are chorused by the peeps of pohowera (banded dotterels), followed by curious pihoihoi (pipits) and ngirungiru (Auckland Island tomtits), and our footsteps startle red- crowned kakariki grazing on the gentians and sward.
When she approached Rēkohu Wharekauri/The Chatham Islands by boat, she was lucky to catch sight of a Chatham Island tāiko, the only place in the world where this rare petrel breeds.
The next time she visited Rēkohu Wharekauri, she flew instead of sailing. She spent two weeks at Tāiko camp as a volunteer using spotlighting to endeavour to capture new tāiko and track them to their burrows.
On calm clear nights, the air as cold as steel and our hands frozen to our torches, we see stars and nothing else. On nights of howling winds and rain, we are punished by the elements and rewarded with birds.
On Rangatira, where she helped with white-faced storm petrel translocation, she was fortunate to catch sight of two black robins near the hut: one adult and one fledgling. Every single black robin alive today is descended from a single female, Old Blue. The black robin recently won The Bird of the Year in the annual Forest and Bird competition.
On Rakiura/Stewart Island, she goes on pre-dawn tokoeka (southern brown kiwi) spotting walks with fern-ecologist friend James, but they are out of luck. It will not be until several years later, when she leads a wildlife photography workshop on a tour specifically to see them, that she finally manages to photograph this rare bird.
In Te Waipounamu/ The South Island, her photographs of kea are especially striking, one swooping in to inspect parked cars at Homer Tunnel, another of kea feather details mid-tussle, and one of a quiet moment between two playfighting kea.
Back on the water, at the end of her Te Waipounamu/ The South Island journeys, she muses:
I have loved the adventure of chasing alpine birds, wandering along braided rivers and getting caught up in the changeable weather of the mountains in spring. There is something about the ocean, though, and this dynamic world that shifts below my feet.
It is the seabirds that catch me more than anything and it is them I choose to focus on.
She has made many journeys to Tīkapa Moana/ The Hauraki Gulf, where she did a year’s research for her Masters and four years for her PHD.
For her PhD research, she describes tracking the lives of rako/buller’s shearwater using modern technology (GPS to see where they go when foraging, and geolocators to follow their migrations once the chicks have gone).
Sadly, they are finding dead chicks in some of the burrows, attributable to climate change, which is causing warmer seas. Their parents have to travel farther and farther from home to find enough food to bring back to their chicks so they can grow and fledge. And the food that they do manage to bring home is not as nutritious as previously.
Birdlands is a taonga, a spellbinding introduction to the myriads of birds that live in Aotearoa’s remote islands and the important scientific research and conservation work Edin has been involved in. As well as being an enthralling read, it is bound to raise public awareness about the need to protect these precious birds.
Reviewer: Lyn Potter
Penguin
