New Zealand—January 31, 2025

 Auckland, January 31, 2025

Today we visited Tiritiri Matangi Scientific Reserve and took a guided tour of this plant and bird sanctuary. Pam was our guide and is one of hundreds of volunteers who have dedicated their lives to reclaiming this island from the Hobbs family who farmed and ranched the island, destroying its natural habitat over a hundred years. Read a brief history about Tiritiri Matangi here. 

And this link provides great information about visiting the island. And this is the link I used to plan and reserve our excursion. Take a moment and look at the links referenced in this paragraph.

Although we enjoyed our 80 minute boat ride to the island and a 3 mile guided walk, we discovered that birds are elusive creatures. Our excursion today reminded us of the Jimmy Stewart movie Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation when John McGiver takes Jimmy Stewart out birding. It's hilarious because Stewart agreed to go birding with McGiver, because it would improve his son in-law's chance at a great job. Well, McGiver drags Mr. Hobbs (Jimmy Stewart) throughout the bush on a hot day only to mostly see barn swallows. The running gag of this escapade is when Stewart says in a hushed tone, "Oh, and what's that little fella over there?" and McGiver responds, "Baarrnn swallow."

On our Tiritiri Tatangi excursion today, we relived Mr. Hobbs' experience. There were birds, but we mostly only heard their call and Pam, our volunteer guide, would stop, cock her head and say, "Did you hear that?" She would then follow it up with identifying the bird. This went on for 3 hours. We did actually see a few Kererū's, a north island indigenous pigeon that has been transplanted to this island to save it from extinction. We also saw one Forrest Parrot. What we did see plenty of were Bellbirds. In fact, it became our "baarrnn swallow". 

So this page is going to show lots of indigenous plants that were meticulously replanted by volunteers from 1983-93 and have since grown thick and lush.

This photo shows the island when most of the indigenous plants were wiped out by cattle and sheep ranching and farming. But once the island was handed over to the Department of Conservation and became a dedicated reserve for endangered plants and birds, it has become an amazing reclamation project.

Okay, here are some of the pictures I took during our guided walk along the Wattle Trail.

These are some of the birds we expected to see.

 

 

 

 

One of three rangers giving us the leave no trace talk.

This insect weighs more than a house sparrow. Read the description.

The Puriri is shown above.

Bird house scientists use to study nesting pairs.

Right it's a Bellbird.

Hard to believe this jungle was a grazing pasture.

Another Bellbird

Pam, our guide talks about all the birds we didn't see.

The island is back to its lush origin.

Built in 1865 the lighthouse was fully automated in 1984.

The rangers are scrupulous about this and make sure invasive plant life isn't accidentally carried to the island on the soles of visitors' shoes. Before boarding the boat for the island everybody has to disinfect and scrub the soles of their shoes at a cleaning station.