Two in the Bush (7 page)

We drove back into Dunedin, dropped Stan at his house, and then pointed the nose of the Land-Rover back the way we had come. Our destination was Picton, the port on the extreme tip of South
Island, for it was from here that we were to take the trip out to the Brothers.

The following morning we made our way down to the jetty in Picton and found the boat that was to take us to the Brothers. She was a small, rather raffish-looking launch, with a wheelhouse the
size of a matchbox. Jim, festooned with equipment like a Christmas tree, gazed at it uneasily.

‘Are we going in
that
?’ he asked.

‘Yes. What’s wrong with it? It’s a dear little boat,’ said Jacquie, and I saw the launch’s owner wince visibly.

‘But it’s so small,’ said Jim. ‘There are no cabins.’

‘We’ll only be on her for a few hours. What on earth do you want cabins for?’

‘You have to have
somewhere
to go if you feel sick,’ said Jim in a dignified tone.

‘You can be sick over the side,’ said Chris callously.

‘I like to be sick in private,’ said Jim.

‘Well, stick a coat over your head,’ said Chris.

‘Come along, come along, let’s get started,’ said Brian, rushing to and fro carrying things. We got the last of the equipment on and then scrambled aboard ourselves. The
skipper of the launch cast off and started the engine and we set off down Queen Charlotte Sound, our dinghy bobbing and bouncing about in our wake like an excited puppy chasing its mother’s
tail.

The water of the Sound was as flat as a pale blue mirror, and reflected in it were the rolling, browny-green, rather desiccated-looking hills along each side. We crowded on to the tiny deck in
the bows of our craft and lay basking in the thin sunshine, keeping a sharp look-out for birds. Here Brian came into his own, for his phenomenal eyesight enabled him to pick out and identify
species long before we had our eyes attuned to the silky blue reflection of the water. Luckily, however, most of the bird life we saw was reasonably tame and allowed the boat to get quite close
before scattering. The first, and by far the most common species we saw were the fluttering shearwaters, small, fragile-looking birds, blackish-brown in colour with white undercarriages and ashy
grey marking on the head. They freckled the water in little clusters of four or five and would let us get to within about twenty feet of them before taking off and flying along the surface of the
water with a rapid, rather twisting flight, their wings flapping rapidly in the characteristic shearwater flight that has given them their name. We were endeavouring to get some good cine shots of
the fluttering shearwaters when Brian pointed out to me a mysterious round object floating on the surface of the water.

‘Penguin!’ he said succinctly.

I stared at the rounded object incredulously; it bore absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to any bird species I had ever seen. Suddenly the ball swivelled round and I saw it had a beak attached
to it. Sure enough, it was the head of a penguin, swimming along with the body completely submerged and only the head showing above the surface, like the periscope of a submarine. As the boat drew
closer to it we could distinguish the body beneath the clear water and watch it as it propelled itself along with its flippers and feet. It was a species of penguin that I had always wanted to meet
– the Cook Strait blue penguin, the smallest of this extraordinary family. Tubby little birds, they stand only sixteen inches high; their shirt fronts are an immaculate, shining, first-night
white, and the rest of their plumage a beautiful deep blue, nicely set off by a neat white line down the outside of each flipper. The one we were following seemed more cautious than afraid, for he
would let the boat come within twenty or thirty feet of him before suddenly submerging and zooming off like a torpedo, leaving a trail of silvery bubbles behind him. Then he would pop to the
surface when he was well ahead, and float there, watching us with interest until the boat was nearly on top of him again. Presently he was joined by six or seven others, and they led us along like
a guard of honour for several miles. They were enchanting little birds and the more we saw of them the more we grew to like them, although, as we were soon to learn, close proximity to them could
be irritating.

After chugging down the Sound for an hour or so, we rounded a headland and ahead of us could see the mouth of the Sound. Here we would be entering the open sea of Cook Strait. We could see that
the water ahead was not the smooth, pale blue water of the Sound, but a deep, rich, peacock blue, flecked and striped with foam.

‘Looks as though it’s going to be a bit rough,’ shouted our skipper, cheerfully. Jim, who had been lying back with his eyes closed and a beatific smile on his face, sat up in
alarm and looked ahead.

‘Cor, stone the crows,’ he said, ‘are we going out into
that?’

‘What really worries me is that if it’s too rough we won’t be able to land on the White Rocks
or
the Brothers,’ said Brian.

‘It doesn’t worry me,’ said Jim, ‘not in the least. Let’s turn back and film some more penguins.’

‘Oh, it’s not too bad,’ said our skipper. At that moment we hit the demarcation line between the calm waters of the Sound and the boisterous waters of Cook Strait. The launch,
like a skittish horse, immediately tried its best to stand on its head, and a vast quantity of spray was flung on to the deck where we were sitting. We rose in a body and struggled back to wedge
ourselves in the tiny wheelhouse which at least gave us some protection.

‘We’re mad – stark staring mad,’ said Jim, desperately trying to keep his balance and mop seawater off the lens of his camera.

‘Just a bit of a blow,’ said the skipper amusedly, ‘but it might make it a bit tricky getting on to the White Rocks, that’s all.’

‘How do we get on there?’ asked Jim.

‘In the dinghy,’ replied the skipper.

Jim glanced out over the stem and was treated to the sight of the tiny dinghy on the end of her rope completely disappearing behind a wave.

‘A bit tricky,’ said Jim thoughtfully. ‘That is one of the most masterly understatements I have ever heard.’

Although to anyone used to small boats this sea was nothing, to anyone who suffered acutely from seasickness it must have seemed as though we were in the middle of a typhoon. However, I could
quite see the skipper’s point of view that to get on to an almost sheer rock without adequate anchorage in a sea like this
was
going to be tricky. It was not long before we caught our
first glimpse of the White Rocks through the salt-encrusted windows of the wheelhouse, and I began to realise how difficult the landing might be. It reared up out of the sea like a medium sized
pyramid with a carunculated top. The upper surface of the rock was white with the droppings of generations of seabirds, and this gave it the appearance of a badly shaped and badly iced Christmas
cake. The skipper edged the launch round to the seaward side of the rock, where there was a slight recess that could hardly be dignified with the term bay. Here he cut the engine down as much as
possible and his second in command pulled the dinghy alongside the wallowing, rolling launch. Getting from the launch into the dinghy in that sea was quite a feat in itself, but to do it while
carrying heavy but delicate equipment required the agility of a gibbon, and I was sure at one point when Jim stumbled that he would pitch headfirst into the sea and sink from sight, pulled under by
the weight of the stuff he was carrying. One by one, Chris, Jim, Brian and I were ferried across and landed on a beach the size of the average dining table at the base of the rock; with the four of
us and the equipment on the beach, there was little room for anything else.

As Brian explained to us, the nesting site of the king shags was on a small, flat area on the very crest of the White Rocks, and in order to get to it we would have to scale the cliff under
which we now stood. Jim glanced at the almost vertical rock face and raised his eyes to heaven. Actually, the climb was not difficult, for the wind and rain had gouged and fretted the rock face to
such an extent that there were a thousand hand and footholds. What made the climb at all dangerous was the composition of the White Rocks: the whole thing was as brittle and crumbly as sponge cake
and you could literally break off great chunks of it with your bare hands, so every foothold and handhold had to be tested and double checked. Also, the wind had acted like a whetstone, sharpening
every projection to a razor edge, and this was an added hazard. Laboriously we climbed up the cliff, and when we reached the top and peered over, the wind hit us with such force that it almost blew
both us and the equipment into the sea. We were now clinging to the summit, some hundred and fifty feet above the sea. To our right a coffin-shaped slab of stone projected out over the waves, and
to our left the fretted spine of the rock ran along for some two hundred feet and then petered out into a flattish area about fifty feet by twenty, and there was the colony of king shags. There
were about twenty of them squatting on the rock among their nests, and as our heads appeared above the edge of the rock they all waddled to the edge and took off, sweeping and wheeling round us,
showing on their backs as they flew two curious, circular white patches that looked like the headlights of a car. They flew round in ever increasing circles until the whole flock were mere
pinpricks against the blue sky. Brian assured us that they would soon return, and so Jim, having sized up the photographic possibilities of the situation, insisted on crawling out and lying on the
coffin-shaped projection to our right; this in spite of our protests, for the rock was so brittle that the whole chunk could have broken off under his weight and precipitated him a hundred and
fifty feet to the sea below. This was typical of Jim: he spent most of his time trying to persuade you that he was the most arrant coward and yet, when he had a camera in his hands, he would take
risks that would make your blood run cold. So we crouched there in the biting wind, endeavouring to look as much like part of the rock as possible, and waited for the king shags to return. While we
waited, I trained my binoculars on to the nesting site and examined the nests. These were circular structures some two feet in diameter and about nine inches in height, made of a mixture of plants
and seaweed cemented together with the birds’ excreta, and as they are added to each year some were considerably higher than others. The White Rocks are, of course, as bare of vegetation as a
billiard ball, so the birds have to fly to other nearby islands to collect their nesting material. The list of plants used in this nest building reads like something out of Lewis Carroll: taupata
twigs, scurvy grass and mesembryanthemum.

The shags were a long time coming back and Brian started to get worried, for the weather was getting worse and soon we should either have to go back to the launch without filming them, or run
the very real risk that the launch might have to leave us marooned on the White Rocks. The latter prospect did not enthral any of us, for a night spent on the rock would hardly appeal to even the
most spartan of souls, but then we saw the shags returning, wheeling through the sky, their strange headlight markings showing up brilliantly white against the darkness of the backs. They flew
lower and lower over the rock, and then one, bolder than the rest, swooped in and landed on the nesting site. Within a few minutes the rest, emboldened by his action, had joined him.

While Jim’s camera was whirring away, I had plenty of time to watch the birds through my binoculars. They were about the size of a European gannet, but with the typical upright stance of
the shag and cormorant family; they had beautiful metallic bluey-green backs and white shirt fronts, and the bare skin round the base of the beak and the eye was brilliant orange and blue. They
flapped and waddled among their nests, adding bits of seaweed to the structures, and occasionally pinching nice bits of nesting material from their neighbours’ nests, if the neighbours were
not looking. In one corner of the nesting site a fully adult youngster, still in his drab, immature plumage, pursued his parent round and round the nest – mouth open, wings fluttering, and
wailing peevishly for food. Eventually the mother, bored by his continuous pursuit, stopped and opened her beak to him, whereupon the baby, with a wild squawk of delight, dived in head first, his
head and part of his neck disappearing down her throat. This action he accompanied with much wing flapping, so that the parent bird was hard put to it to retain her balance. It really looked as
though the baby was trying to disembowel her. Eventually, when it was obvious that she had regurgitated as much as she was able to, he withdrew his head with reluctance and sat there clattering his
beak and uttering tiny, self-satisfied wails and belches to himself. The parent bird, obviously relieved, wandered off, hastily swiped a piece of seaweed from somebody else’s nest, and
proceeded to do some running repairs to her own.

By now the wind had increased in force and far below us we could see the launch pitching and tossing as she revolved in tight circles. We had taken all the film we needed, so it seemed only
prudent to get off the White Rocks while we were still able to. We found the descent infinitely more hazardous than the climb up had been, but we eventually ended up on the minute beach, scratched
and breathless but intact. As we boarded the launch and headed out to sea, a small group of king shags took off from the rock and flew over us, wheeled round and settled on the rock again. I
wondered how long these wonderful seabirds could hold out against extinction: the White Rocks are one of the only two nesting places for the king shag in the world, and the White Rocks can hardly
be called a desirable residence, for each year a bit more of it is eaten away by the rapacious wind and the sea. Also, there are several different kinds of shag and cormorant in New Zealand, and
some of these, the fishermen claim, do damage to the fishing, so they are allowed to shoot them in certain areas – one of the areas being in the vicinity of the White Rocks. Now the average
fisherman out to shoot cormorants or shags is either not sufficient of a naturalist to distinguish between the king shag and the other species, or else he simply does not care. As far as he is
concerned, the bird is a fish eater and should therefore be shot, so the future of the king shag is, to say the least, uncertain.