Starlings take up residence in the area around the old Napier City Council buildings. Photo / Paul Taylor
Starlings take up residence in the area around the old Napier City Council buildings. Photo / Paul Taylor
With Napier streets sitting quiet nature has filled in the noise of the hustle and bustle of the city's CBD.
A common site for many guests to the CBD at night near the Napier Police Station on Station St is the cacophony of starling birds filling the night, but withthe lockdown the flock has come out in force - and song.
Hawke's Bay Bird Club president Don Birch said that he has known about the starling gathering for many years and, although he hasn't been able to visit the site during the lockdown, he can just imagine the noise and mess they will be making in the empty streets of Napier.
"Before the lockdown the birds would gather and make quite the noise and screeches when it would get quiet in town later at night," he said.
"With the region now quiet the birds would be gathering there more often and nesting and with thousands of them there I can just imagine the noise it would make during the day but also the mess they normally leave on the street below."
Kit (left) and Kele Juhl, from Denmark, watch the starlings take up residence in the area around the old Napier City Council buildings. Photo / Paul Taylor
Birch said that with the region being so quiet nature had really come out over the lockdown and there had been a greater number of tuis around where he lives.
Danish tourists Kele and Kit Juhl, who are stuck in Napier during the lockdown, are amongst many who have noticed the weird and loud gathering while exploring the empty city.
"With the city so quiet we could hear it from quite a way away and we were wondering what the noise was. Until we got closer we didn't know what it was," Kit said.
