Long absent tuis return to Christchurch

Thursday, 18 October 2007

Tui, the popular songsters that disappeared from Christchurch four or five decades ago, are making a comeback.

Their reappearance is fuelling hopes that, with a little human encouragement, the honey-eating birds may start breeding in the city again.

Breeding colonies of tui died out in Christchurch in the 1960s and 1970s, said Christchurch City Council ranger Andrew Crossland. Theories have included habitat loss, disease, predation, attacks by magpies and baits laid for possums.

A few tui have regularly visited the city over the last few years, said Crossland.

Reliable reports have been received from Hoon Hay Road, Halswell-Tai Tapu Road, the Waitikiri golf course in Burwood and Lower Styx Road in Brooklands.

'We still get visitations, which is in itself an authentic migrational phenomenon,' Crossland said. 'It might lead to self-colonisation in the future, as lots of other birds have already done in the Christchurch area.'

A St Martins couple reported hearing the tui's distinctive warbles, croaks, rattle and chuckles from a giant flowering kowhai tree in their backyard last week, but did not sight the bird.

Crossland said experts were sceptical about tui reports unless observers got a good view of the bird and its distinctive white tufts at the throat.

'A proportion of the reports are probably people hearing a bellbird and seeing a blackbird or a starling from the back and thinking they've seen a tui,' he said.

A list of sightings compiled by Landcare Research shows tui have been reported in Opawa, Cracroft, Prebbleton, Spreydon and Hinewai, on Banks Peninsula, in the last four years.

Tui disappeared from the peninsula about 20 years ago, but there have been reports of birds around Akaroa since then.

A project to reintroduce tui to the peninsula began last year. An ecologist's report found there was almost certainly enough year-round nectar, fruit and insects to support tui again.

The Banks Peninsula tui restoration project hopes to release tui into the wild by 2009. Landowners will be encouraged to create tui habitats and to provide sugar-water feeders to supplement their diet.

The closest populations are believed to be 100km to 140km away at Lake Sumner, Loch Katrine and Hope Valley in North Canterbury.

Project co-ordinator Heidi Stevens said 30 tui from Maud Island, in the Marlborough Sounds, would be released on the peninsula with radio transmitters.

Sponsors could support individual birds and receive updates on their progress for $500.

In another project, Landcare Research has had an overwhelming response to a national garden bird survey it is jointly undertaking with bird expert groups, the Department of Conservation and councils.

Participants were asked to spend an hour during a week in July to count birds in their gardens and parks.

More than 2000 responses were received nationally, including about 600 from a survey form published in The Press.

Landcare Research project leader Eric Spurr said the returns, which were still being processed, may show up some tui.

What the survey did show was people's passion for birds.

'I've had so many favourable comments from people saying `We loved doing the survey, when can we do the next one?'' Spurr said.

'People have sent me photographs of their gardens and their bird feeders. Some people have sent me pages of notes about birds in their gardens throughout the year and recipes they've been feeding birds.'

A preliminary analysis showed blackbirds were the most common bird, occurring in 90 per cent of gardens, compared with sparrows in 83 per cent, silvereyes in 81 per cent and starlings in 54 per cent.