Written by Benjamin Hepi Brown, assisted and edited by Robin Kermode.
Photographed by Robin Kermode and Luiza Turganova.
Day One: Jan 6th
We packed, went to the supermarket and were early (by half an hour) for the shuttle taxi at the Akarana Yacht Club. I couldn't wait to go to Rotoroa Island. We had been online with Robin for 11 episodes in Term 4 2021 lockdown, being Aranga Kaitaki Rangers, and now we were going to be Aranga Kaitaki Rangers on Rotoroa Island for three days and two nights. For me this was like accomplishing a backside tailside (a difficult trick) in skate boarding. When I nail that trick I feel proud. When I complete the Aranga Kaitaki Ranger programme I will also feel proud. Something moves inside of me after something is challenging and then I overcome the challenge and achieve what I didn't think I could. I am super proud to be part of the Rotoroa Island Education Programme as an Aranga Kaitaki Ranger and super proud when I backside tailside on my skateboard.
The ferry left at 1:45 pm.
Back row - Ben, Tama and Albert. Front row - Mikaya and Mikayla.
The boat ride was rough. There was wind and waves. We held on to the rail so we wouldn’t fall. This is my first time in a boat, as it is for the rest of my whānau. We were on the lookout for dolphins and orca. We kept our eyes wide open. But there were no dolphins or orca to be seen. Robin, our guide and also our friend, asked us to keep an eye out for seabirds. The driver of the boat ( Dave ) spotted a spotted shag (pārekareka). It flew across the front of the boat. That was the only seabird we saw on our 60 minute journey.
Spotted shag photographed by Jeremiah Trimble (E-Bird 2018)
Best tricks of a pārekareka are: they can jump out of the water to add power to their dives, they can hold out their wings by keeping them wide to dry, and can stay underwater for 45 seconds.
On the trip Robin went into a character who was around in the year 1905. His name was Walter Buller. He was the person who could have been a hero by saving a pair of huia, but instead he shipped the last pair of huia known, mounted and taxidermied to a person called Lord Rothschild in an organisation in London called The Linnean Society. Walter received lots of money for sending the huia pair by ship in the early 1900s. It made me feel mad that a guy could do that when the huia still had some sort of chance of surviving. Humans can certainly have a flip side. It reminds me of skateboarding too. You can either backflip or fall! Huia fell.
Coming out of character, Robin connected the huia extinction story to the seabirds of today. Like the huia, some seabirds are on the brink of extinction. They too could survive or disappear like the huia.
Artwork by Mahkaila Jones
Walter Buller could have been famous. Makayla tries on the Walter Buller look.
Then Robin went into another character. She wore a different hat. This one was a modern day dude. His name was Chris Gaskin. He talked about the the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), who give comprehensive information on global species, including terns, gulls, penguins and shags. There are only 39 individual fairy terns left! They could become extinct like the huia.
And what about the white-faced storm petrel, which some people refer to as the "Jesus bird". It dances on the top of the water while it forages. It leaves in Feb for South America and then returns in September. They breed in the Mokuhinau Islands. This is remarkable - as remarkable as the threatened bar-tailed godwits (kuaka) which fly to Alaska to breed then fly here to the Hauraki Gulf. They are here from November till February to get away from Alaska's cold.
Chris (who is played by Robin) talked about seabirds being extraordinary. They embody the spirit of the mauri of our Hauraki Gulf. Everything has its own mauri. By studying, observing, and monitoring our seabirds on land and sea we can see the interconnectedness of everything living. Their health affects our health. He explains that without seabirds our health will decline quickly. There are 27 seabird species which breed within the wider Hauraki Gulf region, 86 breed in NZ (38 nowhere else in the world), and worldwide there are 360 seabird species.
Fishing bycatch and rat reinvasion on islands are seabirds' biggest threat. All threats to seabirds have been caused by humans - pollution, climate change and introducing predators. We need everyone to learn about seabirds, he said . If everyone while on the ocean assisted sighting, and we were tagging, monitoring and observing seabirds, their conservation status would be upgraded. By the end of his talk I understood seabirds could go the way of huia, that is, become extinct if we don't learn more. We have to give them space and learn about them.
Having only seen one seabird on the trip, I am getting the picture.
Fairy Tern, photo from NZ Birds Online
After what felt like forever (one hour) we reached our destination. I can see learning skateboarding tricks could be similar to learning a bird species and its tricks.
We carefully hopped off the boat and put our luggage in the boot of Glen‘s truck. Glen is the ranger for the island. We piled everybody into the truck and 5 minutes later, and about 1km from the wharf, we arrived at our restful home. We got a good view of some parts of the island on the drive. When we reached our restful home Glen went through the house rules. He was pretty strict. We were not to feed the birds, don't let the weka in the house, use water minimally, give birds' space on the beach. Keep tidy. I can't remember the other rules. We have been taught by our Mums that rules allow things to work, so no worries there about keeping to the rules.
After getting things sorted with our rooms and luggage, we set off to Ladies Bay with our swimming gear and stuff for dinner. We first all took dips in the water. It was so hot. The freshness of the water cooled us all. Makayla and Mikaya seemed to stay in the water for hours. Milly, Glen's wife, was also swimming and we all introduced ourselves. The bro's then went exploring around the bay and the next bay looking for crabs or whatever we could find. The Mums cooked chips and burgers on the bbq. Makayla assisted. The bro's found many crabs and shrimps. We then heard our Mum calling out our names around the coast. It was fuelling our tummies with delicious vegan burgers and chips time.
After eating we all cleaned up and headed back home. From there we took some warm clothes, and headed for a walk to Maimai Bay to see if we could see some takahe and their chicks. We didn’t find any. Then we headed to the the Northern Head tower to see the view and we kept looking for land and seabirds.
All the birds seemed to be hiding. It was still quite hot. We made our way back to Ladies Bay through the mature bush. The sun was just setting. We saw a ruru/owl fly off at the top near Northern Head.
On the way back Robin declared a silent space. We were not allowed to talk from the top of the bush until we got to Ladies Bay. That was a cool experience.
After getting home we had a catch up with Robin and whānau of what it all was like for everyone. We were all tired and we headed off to bed.
Day Two: Jan 7th
I had an awful sleep at our restful home. My bed was very uncomfortable. Robin said she did too.
We all got up for breakfast. We had bananas, blueberries, yoghurt, milk and always cleaned up after ourselves. Mums and Robin made wraps for lunch. We headed for some activities in Home Bay. Tama and I did an activity called 'Backyard Detective'. Albert read bird and plant books by Andrew Crowe. Makayla and Mikaya did some work on their nature journals. Trish/Mum also became an Aranga Kaitaki ranger and read.
Robin had received an email from the Te Papa Museum wanting Aranga Kaitiaki rangers to uncover a shallow grave that an ornithologist had found on Rotoroa Island. The Aranga Kaitaki Rangers dug out the grave. It turned out there were the bones of two feet of a giant eagle in the shallow grave. How tall was it? Why did it go extinct? What did it eat? We all offered our ideas. I thought humans saw the eagle as too much of a threat and they wiped it out.
Then we all headed to do a 'Metre square'. (A 1mx1m square patch to survey an intertidal community of animals and plants that live there.) We found very little because it was mid-tide. We hunted for crabs under rocks anyway. We saw dotterels (one of their tricks is they camouflage so well) and torea (oyster catchers) and a torea chick. We surrounded the parent, maybe the Mum Torea and chick. Then Robin asked us to step away as we were not giving them space to have somewhere to go.
We had lunch at Home Bay, dropped our gear off at our restful home and went for another walk down to South Tower and the Chris Booth sculpture. We went slowly as we were looking for tieke (saddlebacks), pōpokotea (whiteheads), riroriro (grey warbler) and tauhou (silvereye). The views were spectacular.
We also got down low as we thought the sun was out and the birds might be looking for shade. We got cheeky and got some mean photos of tyke, riroriro. We spotted silver eyes but couldn’t get some photos. After a fun hour of walking we reached the South Tower and sculpture.
Someone spotted a gannet diving. Its trick is to dive and hit the water at 100 km/hour and it can dive down 25 metres.
We headed back home a bit faster on the same track. We were all looking forward to going for a swim. We did wait for 10 minutes just before Mens Bay to listen to nature noises. We also had five plants to find. We found Harakeke, Manuka and kana. We couldn’t find kowhai or mahoe. We ask Milly when we buy some icecreams off her. She says there is a kowhai in the front of our restful home. We could collect the leaves and put in our journal pockets. We had better ask whether we can.
Albert started collecting feathers. I gave him a feather I found and he put that in his journal pocket. He has a weka , a tieke and a Pukeko feather in his pocket I think. The views were spectacular, and there were expensive boats cruising. We picked up our togs from our restful home and headed towards Ladies Bay. Mums made dinner. This time it was hot dogs and chips cooked on the barbecue with some salad. It was delicious. We had the beach to ourselves. I wrote 'Skateboarding' on the beach with a large stick. Someone from the air would see it.
Luiza joked if I had my skateboard I could tailboard up the dinner table if it was longer. Robin suggested I play the guitar through the manoeuvre as well.
After dinner we went up to North Tower as Robin's photo of us from the night before did not turn out. She also wanted us all to hear the kiwis calling. It was a silent space again. We saw a ruru (owl) in the same place near the top. We stopped for 20 minutes half way down and listened for kiwis. I hoped to see one. There are 40 kiwis on the island. We didn’t hear them or see them. We went back to our restful home. We watched a movie on television and then we went to bed.
Photo from Philip Griffin, NZ Birds Online
Day Three: Jan 8th
Luiza left the wharf at 6.10am as she had to get back to Auckland. She left with David in his Sea Legs to then catch the Waiheke ferry from Matiatia at 7.00am. Robin walked her down to the wharf. On the way back she saw takahe on the grass. Albert was the only one up early so the two of them went back down to see if it was still there, but it had gone.
We headed for Ladies Bay at about 8.30 hoping to carry out a better metre square. The tide was coming in. Again it was unsuccessful. We all swam. We then went back to our restful home, tidied up and all worked on our nature journals.
We took our packed lunch again to Ladies Bay . Oh no!!, when we arrived there were so many people at our beach?! Three big boats and about 40 people. Today we will have to share. Albert and Robin went around the point. Robin says Albert is like a penguin the way he hops from rock to rock. She says maybe he has super power penguin abilities, because he can jump so high. They saw a 'boil up ' at sea and more dotterels and tōrea. Can you spot the dotterel?
We head back to our restful home. On the way Albert spotted the takahe. There are only 400 left in the world. They were rediscovered in the Murchison mountains down south in 1948.
We finished off our journals. Robin completes the program with us.
Glen picks us up at 4.30pm. We catch the ferry with all the Ladies Bay people and more at 5.15pm. The ferry seems too small for all these people. No chance looking for seabirds. We are crammed inside. We say goodbye to Robin at Orapiu/Waiheke. I am looking forward to going skateboarding again, and maybe the Backside Tailside trick will be easier after being an Aranga Kaitaki Ranger on Rotoroa Island - I can bring being free like a bird to any skateboarding trick.