*Dunedin, 1858, by John Bunney. Te Papa (1944-0001-4)*

If we turned the clock back several hundred years, Dunedin/Ōtepoti would be a very different place. Imagine standing in the Octagon and instead of seeing shops and roads you would be surrounded by beautiful native forest. Huge native trees such as rimu and tōtara would have towered into the sky. The peninsula would have been lush in native canopy.

Areas like Mt Cargill give us a glimpse of what Dunedin’s forests probably looked like. Out in South Dunedin suburbs, much of that land was largely wetland or sandy dunes, perhaps similar to modern day Hoopers Inlet.

With the loss of habitat, threats from introduced predators and hunting, many native birds that once flourished in Dunedin have disappeared. Here is a list of some of the special bird species that once filled our forests and skies.

One day some of these birds may once again be seen in our city as we reduce introduced predator numbers!

1) Moa

An artist’s representation of moa. Credit: John Megahan - PLoS Biol 3(1): e20. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030020.g001

One of New Zealand’s most iconic extinct birds once roamed Dunedin’s hills and forests. Moa bones and piles of gizzard stones have been found on the hills around the city. Remarkably, remains of 5 of the 9 moa species have been found within the wider Dunedin area. It’s likely moa would have lived in bush edges, up on hills, and in swampy areas before being hunted to extinction hundreds of years ago.

2) Whēkau/Laughing owl

*A laughing owl/whēkau with a rat, photographed in 1909 in South Canterbury. Credit: Cuthbert and Oliver Parr.*

At night, Dunedin’s forests would have been filled with the “doleful shrieks” of the laughing owl/whēkau. The laughing owl was about twice the size of morepork/ruru and its European name comes from its noisy night-time calling. It went extinct in the 1930s.

A record from local scientist George Malcolm Thomson in 1915 states, “[the laughing owl was] certainly not uncommon in the bush country from Ravensbourne to the Heads (Aramoana), till quite a few years ago. My last record is one night in May, 1903, when one – perched on a tree in my garden in Newington – called repeatedly to its mate.”

3) Kiwi

*A little spotted kiwi. Credit: Judi Lapsley Miller.*

Kiwi bones have been found in middens (rubbish pits) around Dunedin and live kiwi were still present in Dunedin up to 150 years ago. There is a record from 1872 of two little spotted kiwi being killed by a dog in the bush near present-day St Leonards. Little spotted kiwi are the smallest of our kiwi species and most of the population now lives on Kapiti Island near Wellington.

4) Weka

The cheeky weka once lived in Dunedin and survives today in the name of the suburb Ravensbourne. The story goes that Thomas De Lacy, first mayor of West Harbour, had lots of weka living near his property and the birds reminded him of the ravens in his native Scotland. Another record suggests the name comes from the Ravensbourne River that flows in London.

5) Kākāriki

Kākāriki/parakeets once filled Dunedin’s forests with noisy chattering and only disappeared in the last 150 years or so. Local conservationist Alexander Bathgate published an account in 1922 of changes he’d seen in Dunedin birds and plants. Reflecting back to the late 1860s, he said, “Parakeets were abundant, both the red-fronted and the yellow-fronted... for some years they were continuous residents in the bush at the Glen, Mornington...”

6) Kākā

*A kākā drilling into a tree. Credit: Mcbeath K - CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76909849.*

The noisy shrieks of kākā were once common in Dunedin. Alexander Bathgate made an observation that “kākā were at times to be seen in the suburbs, and were abundant... in the native forests which then covered many of the surrounding hills, the clearing of which accounts for their total disappearance from our neighbourhood.”

There is a record from 1872 casually mentioning a boy shooting kākā in Pine Hill and by 1876 another observer stated, “The native kākā, once so plentiful near town, cannot be met with.”

Today kākā are flourishing once again within Orkonui Ecosanctuary’s predator-proof fence and locals sometimes have the parrots visiting their backyards. Kākā chicks are also being hatched at the Botanic Garden Aviary as part of a captive breeding programme.

7) Mōhua/yellowhead

*A mōhua/yellowhead. Credit: Markanderson72 - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83969125.*

Once one of the most common forest birds of the South Island, the mōhua/yellowhead also called Dunedin home. There are records of large flocks of the birds in Pine Hill and Flagstaff. Alexander Bathgate stated the loss of habitat through forest felling was responsible for the loss of mōhua from Dunedin. Remnant populations still live in The Catlins and the Blue Mountains, though in small numbers.

Reference

New Zealand's Changing Natural History - evidence from Dunedin 1868 - 1875

Special thanks to Kane Fleury, Natural History Curator at Otago Museum, for providing input into this story.

7 birds that used to live in Dunedin