Tui are viewed by many as a delightful addition to the garden, but some Karori residents are sick of the dawn chorus. Photo / Mark Mitchell
While waking up to the sound of a tui singing is preferable to noisy traffic and screaming children it is still enough to drive some people to desperation.
Wellington's Karori Wildlife Sanctuary has received a number of complaints from people sick of being woken early in the morning
by noisy tui this summer.
The sanctuary's conservation specialist, Raewyn Empson, said it was a problem of quality as much as the timing.
At this time of year young birds, still learning the craft, would often belt out several notes repetitively, she said.
"Usually, one of the first things people say to me when I tell them where I work is how wonderful it is to have so many native birds back in their gardens.
"But once in a while you get someone who is fed up with being woken up at the crack of dawn or even earlier. The trouble is that tui don't seem to need as much sleep as we do."
However, she said, "there are a lot of worse noises to wake up to".
The number of native birds in Wellington has increased over the last decade.
Council pest-control programmes and the establishment of the Karori Sanctuary have seen numbers rocket.
Since 1995, the sanctuary has reintroduced 12 species of birds that were extinct in the Wellington area, including kaka, kiwi and saddleback.
Tui are found only in New Zealand.
- NZPA
