CHB enthusiast tracks return of bellbirds

Hamish (Rob's brother), Jackson (Rob's nephew), and Rob McClean at their family farm.

Third-generation Porangahau landowner Rob McClean is on a mission to track the spread of bellbirds throughout the CHB and the Tararua districts.

"I'm keen to hear from people as to where they are seeing them or hearing them, and when the birds started to return. I think it's important as it will give people an idea of what can happen when you get rid of possums and allow birds to thrive."

Rob has worked with the Hawke's Bay Regional Council on biosecurity for years, but his love of the environment was triggered long before that.

"My father's stories started it all. He was born at Whangaehu in 1925 and he could remember the shearwaters and the cormorants on the cliffs.

"The kiwi were gone by then, but his father - my grandfather - could remember the kiwi running around his hut. He told me he used to compete with wood pigeons for plums. I was brought up hearing bird stories.

"Then possums came into our valley in 1945, stealing the food from our native birds.

"I remember my father asking Scotty Mills, the rabbiter, 'what's been eating our fruit trees?' and Scotty told him it was possums. Scotty gave him a fox terrier to help keep the possums at bay and Dad had one ever since.

"In the 1960s, through to the 1990 possums went berserk. They were so devastating that birdlife virtually disappeared.

"Then in 1990, because of the spread of TB, the Government spent a lot of money on a massive possum eradication project on the coast. Possums were annihilated.

"Three years later, in 1993, in the spring, the bellbirds arrived."

That first year a pair nested on Whangaehu Hill, near Rob's house.

"Then tui started to nest in the garden and I saw my first tui chick. We had a cat at that time, but never after that.

"Before long there were four or five tui nests in the garden. I was checking on the eggs and saw them go from three to two ... then one, then none. It was rats. I started on a massive rat eradication around the house then out into the bush using bait stations."

Rob's programme of rat destruction and planting of food sources - winter-flowering gums and tree lucerne - is also encouraging an increase in kereru.

"There were three last year just in our garden. There are nearly 20 in the tree lucerne on Whangaehu Rd and in the corridor to the beach. "

Rob says there are six reserves, remnants of the "70 Mile Bush" that make a bush corridor for the birdlife to travel through, and he is very keen to find out how far the birds - particularly bellbirds - have spread.

To report sightings email Rob at robomclean63@gmail.com