JUST METRES FROM the ferry that’s carried me across the blustery Foveaux Strait to Stewart Island / Rakiura, New Zealand’s third-largest island, a group of variable oystercatchers is foraging on the foreshore. These endemic coastal seabirds are striking – jet-black feathers, bright coral-pink legs and vivid orange markings, like fluorescent eyeliner, around the eyes.
While continuing along the bay and through the small township of Oban – the only settled area of this remote island 30km south of NZ’s South Island – my attention is drawn to rustling leaves in a small tree just off the footpath. Upon closer inspection, there among the branches is not one, but a pair of tui. The birds – also endemic to this island – are nonchalantly going about their business, feeding on the nectar of a native flax, one of NZ’s most ancient plant species, blissfully unaware of the human admiring them from below. The tui are adorned with deep-blue, green, purple and bronze glossy feathers –
