Tag Archives: NZ wood pigeon

Baby kereru

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Soon after hatching – a far cry from its mature form

The kereru is our much-loved native wood pigeon. It was once a significant food source but is now fully protected and can not be hunted legally. Being a large, lumbering bird with small brain, I imagine it was easy to catch and an important source of protein in a country which lacked all mammals (bar two tiny bats that few have ever seen) in the days before colonisation brought both wild and farm animals.

They are a bird of beautiful plumage with a pigeon coo to be heard if you have them resident in your garden. But they are not at all beautiful or cute in the baby stage. Quail hatch out like the cutest little, feathered bumblebees, on the move very soon after hatching. Not the kereru.

Behold the beauty and care shown by the chaffinch as compared to the disgraceful kereru efforts

For starters, kereru parents should be ashamed of their nest-building skills. These consist of tossing a few twigs onto some sort of precarious branch and saying ‘that’ll do’. I have photographed exquisitely crafted nests by other native birds but not the kereru. They then lay a single egg and the ugliest baby hatches out and spends its first weeks perched precariously on its bunch of uncomfortable twigs.

It was a kereru almost taking us out as it flapped its way to gain altitude that drew attention to its nest in the Wisteria ‘Snow Showers’, all of 150cm off the ground. It is not a particularly safe spot; we fear Ralph the dog could possible reach it at a pinch. Se we are skirting around it and trying not to disturb it.

We don’t know exactly which day it hatched but this is likely a few days later

Zack spotted the scrawny little bebe about 10 days ago and came in saying, “Man that is an ugly, scrawny chick”. I couldn’t see it this week and feared it may have fallen out but no, it is still there. I photographed it yesterday morning. It is not much improved in the beauty stakes but I am sure its parents love it.

This is about 10 days later. Its looks have not improved a great deal since.

Below is a photo of one from earlier years. It has grown its feathers and is closer to fledging – a process that takes 5 to 6 weeks. There is only one chick per nest and it is a miracle any reach independence given the long process and the woeful quality of nest.

Here is one I prepared earlier, as they say on cooking shows. A fledgling kereru nesting in the tangerine tree.

I have shown the photo below before. In front of our picture window, we have a bamboo grid suspended to stop bird strike. Our double glazed windows reflect trees and sky and too many birds thought they could fly through, killing themselves on the glass. Window decals did not work. A kereru died before our eyes just centimetres from the decals. I didn’t want net curtains in this room so Mark constructed the bamboo grid. It works. We have not had birds die from striking this window since we hung the grid.

It is the bamboo grid you are looking at – not interfering with the view or the light but proven down many years to be enough to stop birds hitting the window.

It felt like a tragedy every time we found a dead bird, especially as they were often young ones learning to fly. All that time and two parents to raise just one chick a year only for it to die soon after on our windows. For the same reason, we would never have a mirror in the garden and we deplore that modern architectural trend of putting all windowed pavilions set amongst forest trees. Somebody must pick up the bird kill but it is rarely mentioned.

Still one of my favourite photos of this round chonk of a bird, in this case perched in Fairy Magnolia White.

Thanks to Zach for the three photos of our baby soon after hatching.

Garden Lore

“When Wordsworth’s heart with pleasure filled at a crowd of golden daffodils, it’s a safe bet he didn’t see them two weeks later.”

Geoff Hamilton (1936-1996)

Kereru in the apple trees

Kereru in the apple trees

New Zealand’s native wood pigeon. the kereru

The kereru in the apple trees just outside our back door has returned. This is a seasonal appearance. It flies in every day to spend much of the afternoon munching away on the remaining apple leaves. As the trees close down for winter dormancy, the sugars concentrate in the foliage. The kereru never comes in to feed from them until late autumn or early winter but it is pretty enthusiastic now. We rarely see more than one at a time in these trees at a time although we know we have more than just the one as a regular on the property. I see they can live to be 20 years old so perhaps it is just this one that has discovered a taste treat. It is determined and will try and out-stare both humans and dogs until we get within a metre or two before it abandons ship to crash away. At 650 grams average weight, kereru do a lot of crashing at both take off and landing.

Along from the apple trees, we have planted both red and yellow guavas. They are the South American Psidium littorale, not the tropical guava. These were a nostalgic planting specifically to feed both kereru and grandchildren alike. The latter have yet to make an appearance but the kereru are appreciative.

As far as we know, our kereru stick around all year, feeding from a variety of berries, fruit, seeds, flowers and leaves. While they are usually solitary birds, we have counted up to 15 at once on a memorable occasion. Various reasons are given for the national decline in numbers but none of the experts seem to add extremely poor nest building to that list. When it comes to nests and ensuring the safety of their one, solitary offspring at a time, these birds must be contenders for the title of NZ’s worst nest builders.

First printed in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.