'Lone ranger' of song rejoining the forest's dawn chorus

By ANNE BESTON environment reporter

A sleek blue-grey bird with a "lone ranger" mask and beautiful song is making a comeback.

North Island kokako, famous for their loud, flute-like notes, have increased almost 50 per cent in four years and are being moved back to areas they disappeared from decades ago.

"We are now restoring this bird to its historic range and that's a big deal," said Landcare Research scientist John Innes.

In 1999 kokako were estimated at fewer than 400 pairs with a total population of around 1160. That has risen to 640 pairs and 1700 birds.

In 1989 there were five kokako pairs at Mapara wildlife reserve southeast of Te Kuiti - a further 10 pairs were "gay males".

"It's the only bird we know of with male/male pairs, they even build nests," Innes says.

Mapara now has 40 potential breeding pairs and the picture is similar at other key sites. Waipapa ecological area in Pureora Forest west of Lake Taupo now has 77 pairs, compared with 16 in 1998; the 1000ha Mangatutu block in the northern Pureora has 33 pairs, compared with eight in 1995; and at the 50,000ha northern Te Urewera National Park there are 100 pairs, compared with eight in the early 1990s.

Conservationist Laurence Gordon took over the Mangatutu block in the late 1990s and, with a posse of volunteers, hit the predators: ship rats and possums.

"It took off from the day it started, it's just fantastic to go into that forest now and see the birds everywhere," he said.

But kokako risk becoming victims of their own success.

On track to beat DoC's target of 1000 pairs by 2020, research funding has been cut as the department is forced to divert resources to the most critically endangered species.

* A little-known kiwi species has finally been scientifically described. Now officially Apteryx rowi, Okarito brown kiwi live only at Okarito Forest on the West Coast and were long thought to be a distinct subspecies.

Formally identified in 1993, Okarito's kiwi are the rarest of the five kiwi species at just 150 to 250 birds.