For months, stories of a mysterious brightly coloured bird captivated Dannevirke residents.
However, the red/pink hawk sighted around the town turned out to be a hoax after a dead bird was handed into the Dannevirke News office and found to be marked with paint.
The man accused of painting the harrier hawk with spray paint will have to wait until next year to find out if he will be found guilty on two charges of ill-treating an animal, a harrier hawk, by painting its feathers so the animal suffered unreasonable or unnecessary pain or distress, on or about April 27, 2010.
Grant Michael Teahan, farmer of Tiratu, appeared in the Dannevirke District Court recently for a defended hearing.
After hearing evidence from six crown witnesses and Teahan, Judge Geoff Rea reserved his decision.
The crown alleges on two occasions, Teahan ill-treated a harrier hawk by painting it.
Crown prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk, told the court on May 7 Danny Auger, the SPCA inspector from Palmerston North, had received information a dead painted hawk had been found in the area and handed into the Dannevirke News office. Two feathers with paint on them had also been handed in previously.
"The dead bird was taken to Massey University Wildlife Centre where a post-mortem was carried out," Mr Vanderkolk said. "It is the opinion of the vets [that] the paint had severely impacted the health and welfare of the bird."
Vets had said the bird would have been constantly preening itself to try to remove the paint and would have ingested it through this.
The SPCA was given further information regarding YouTube videos under the name Rambo5421, he said.
"Two of these were of interest, Magpie shoot and pre-season Magpie practice," Mr Vanderkolk said. "These contained images of magpie trapping and shooting. However, they also contained images of a homemade trap with pink paint on them."
On May 8, SPCA inspectors, assisted by police, executed a search warrant at the defendant's property. Among the items seized were a computer, camera, CD rom disks, two bottles of tail paint, two traps and various photos and newspaper articles.
A computer forensics expert found a number of images and files on the computer relating to the painted hawk.
The defendant admitted to having taken photos of the painted hawk but denied he was responsible. He also admitted the trap in the video had paint on it but was unable to produce it. He told inspectors he had thrown the trap away a month earlier as it had broken. He said he took it to the local tip."
One of the inspectors who gave evidence, Benjamin Lakomy, said he had found this statement a bit strange as there was all manner of material lying around.
"I asked him why he had taken it to the tip, to which he replied, he was worried someone might point the finger at him," Mr Lakomy said.
Mr Vanderkolk said Teahan said he had on one occasion trapped a hawk accidentally but had let it go as he knew they were a protected species.
When asked to participate in a formal interview, Teahan refused this request. However, it was carried out several days later.
In giving evidence, Teahan told the court he had started seeing coloured hawks in the area in 2009.
He also told the court he enjoyed photography and took his camera with him most of the time.
When asked about the trap featured in the YouTube video, Teahan said he had painted it pink to attract magpies.
He told the court he had accidentally caught hawks in the trap four or five times and on one of those occasions, he had trapped a red painted hawk which he let go.
"The hawk appeared to be healthy and so I freed it and took video footage of it as it flew away," he said.
Judge Rea said he will provide a written verdict before Teahan's appearance early next year.