A Break From Northland: Another Tui Post

The darkness falls early now.  The clocks have gone back: a presager of winter.  Time for the migration is almost upon me: 19 days 20 hours and 26 minutes as I write these words.  It's just after 4.30 in the afternoon and the sky is dark with rain and my lights are on.  Last week I was waking in the dark but now a new experience wakens me with the lighter mornings: a Tui 10 metres from my head.  This happened once before when I was staying at Katherine's in Tauranga. 

The Tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) is an endemic passerine bird of New Zealand. It is one of the largest members of the diverse honeyeater family.  The name Tui is from the Maori and is the species' formal common name. The plural is simply 'Tui', following Māori usage. The English name, Parson Bird, has fallen into disuse but came about because at first glance the Tui appears completely black except for a small tuft of white feathers at its neck and a small white wing patch, causing it to resemble a parson in religious attire.

Tui's appear to me to 'talk' constantly and with a very varied vocabulary.  Their chatter is generally audible for many tens of metres but their call is audible for a very long way and echoes around the geological bowl in which The Cottage is situated.

So when a Tui in an oak tree 10 metres from your head starts singing the joys of life at the crack of dawn you know about it.

A few days ago I tracked him down and stood underneath the tree and managed a few photos of him.

Tui

No this is not about New Zealand's iconic beverage, Tui Beer, which is probably seen more frequently and exists in greater numbers than the native passerine from which it takes its name.  In fact I have no idea why anyone would want to name a cheap beer after a common but quite exotic and beautiful bird.  

I think I have probably said before in the four summers that I have lived in The Cottage I have hear the Tuis and the Bellbirds almost daily but have never seen a Tui at in the vicinity and only identified a Bellbird on one occasion high in some nearby trees.  

I have managed to photograph a Tui once before at The Beyond The Bridge Café at the Manawatu Gorge.

Well all that changed yesterday.  I was gardening in front of The Cottage.  Well not actually gardening more like clearing away the from between the shrubs grass which was actually taller than I am.  Suddenly I saw a Tui fly from the orchards to one of the huge trees in the paddock.  Now these trees are perhaps 50 metres away and some of the highest trees in the area and the Tui was on a branch not too far from the top.  But it was visible!  So I grabbed my camera and before he flew into the tress and out of sight I managed a few shots.  How pleased was I?

Although the pictures at the Manawatu Gorge were more detailed and closer they do not show the iridescent coat off as well as the following photos do.

I was more than a little chuffed with the day.

Tui

The Tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) is an endemic passerine bird of New Zealand. It is one of the largest members of the diverse honeyeater family.The name Tui is from the Maori and is the species' formal common name. The plural is simply 'Tui', following Māori usage. The English name, Parson Bird, has fallen into disuse but came about because at first glance the Tui appears completely black except for a small tuft of white feathers at its neck and a small white wing patch, causing it to resemble a parson in religious attire. On closer inspection it can be seen - although these photos were taken in dense folliage and are therefore rather dark - that Tui have faded browner patches on the back and flanks, a multicoloured iridescent sheen that varies with the angle from which the light strikes them, and a dusting of small, white-shafted feathers on the back and sides of the neck that produce a lacy collar.

These photos were taken at the Beyond The Bridge Cafe on the Eastern end of the Manawatu Gorge when westopped there for lunch on the way to The Nationals. They are the first reasonable photos I have managed to take of a tui in New Zealand (or anywhere else for that matter).