The bird call that precedes the news bulletins at 7am and 9am is one of the best-loved features of RNZ National’s Morning Report. Its origins can be traced back to 1948 and atechnical difficulty for afledgling broadcasting service.
“It’s my understanding,” says former Morning Report co-presenter Geoff Robinson, “that it originated back in the days of the shortwave service. When aprogramme on the service didn’t fill the allotted time slot they would play the sound to let listeners know that there was a station at the end of it and there would be aprogramme coming.”
That first bird was atūī that, according to an account in this magazine at the time, possessed a cry with “musical intervals which in pitch and
