One of NZ’s most threatened birds honoured in book

Takahē, big blue chicken, Notornis: whatever you call it, the richly coloured bird is one of New Zealand’s quirkiest and most threatened birds, a protected taonga.

In November, when the Takahē Recovery Programme celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Takahē’s rediscovery in Te Anau, the total Takahē population in the country is expected to exceed 500.

That, though, is a small sample of the population that existed before killer stoats were introduced and beat a path to the beautifully plumaged blue-green birds with sharp red bills.

For a while, Takahē were considered extinct. In 1948, Invercargill doctor, Geoffrey Orbell tracked the bird down in Fiordland’s Murchison Mountains.

The find was important. It led to New Zealand’s longest running, threatened species programme. Many things conservationists did to save the kākāpō (population now around 250) were tried first with Takahē, which officially number 475.

Natural history story-teller Alison Ballance, of Nelson, is confident Takahē will number 500 by October 1.

"It will be terrific for a bird that has been on a roller coaster for longer than 75 years".

"They are a bit like racehorses, they share a birthday.

"It’s about not counting your chicks until they are fully fledged, until the first of October. They wait until they get through their first winter before they can be officially added to the population."

Ballance, a zoologist and science communicator, is the author of Takahē: Bird of Dreams, published this year by Potton & Burton.

It is being released at the New Zealand Mountain Film and Book Festival, in Wānaka, tomorrow. Ballance was a university student when she first met a Takahē at the Te Anau Wildlife Park in the 1980s.

The wildlife park is now called the Pununga Manu o Te Anau/Te Anau Bird Sanctuary.

It is run by the Department of Conservation and there, in November, she will MC the recovery programme’s 75th birthday party.

"I can stand there proudly. I describe myself as an aunt to Doc’s kākāpō and Takahē recovery groups. It’s been a privilege to stand alongside them. They are very talented. So I am just going to stand there and beam."

Ballance never studied broadcasting, creative writing or journalism, although story-telling is a constant in her life.

Takahē: Bird Of Dreams opens with a creative story about the hatching, matching and tragic dispatching of female Takahē Hāpara.

At the festival’s Words & Wine session on Sunday Ballance will read extracts from her book.