Rare Wildlife Encounter at Mt Maungatautari

Today is a day for mingling. We’re mingling with the locals, mingling with the farm animals, and mingling with some of world’s rarest birds. You know, the usual.

A sheepy start to the day

Let’s start with the farm animals. Laura wakes up early at the Arapuni Backpackers, steps out of the warm dorm room cabin into a misty morning. There’s a sheep just chomping at grass, as they do, in a small field across the garden. As soon as it is aware of Laura’s presence, it walks towards Laura “baaing” like mad.

“Is it going to charge at me? Take me down? What do you want from me, sheep!?” Laura’s thinking. Any sheep she has encountered in the past have either run away or waited until her back was turned so it could charge at her and stamp on her spine. (Sheep are not friendly in the UK). She stands still and lets the sheep come up to her and… it just puts its head under Laura’s hand to be stroked! She has never seen such an affectionate sheep! Steve, who runs Arapuni Backpackers, explains that they looked after the sheep since they found it as an orphan lamb. So, what loving name have they given to the pet sheep? Sheep. Just sheep. Go figure, since the cat is called BC, for “Bloody Cat”! (We still think that’s brilliant).

After that sheepish encounter, we have a quick breakfast of free range eggs on toast. Steve says he’s always keen to give backpackers the eggs that his neighbour has overwhelmed him with, which is just another charm of this hostel!

Wildlife encounter at Mt Maungatautari

Nearby Arapuni is the pest-free mountain, Maungatautari, AKA Sanctuary Mountain. Protected by a predator-proof fence, Mt Maungatautari is like stepping back in time in a lush forested New Zealand where birds thrive. Endangered birds like kiwi, takahe and kokako are brought here to boost populations away from the threats of land mammal predators. In fact, we have been here ourselves once before to release a kiwi bird into the wild. It’s great to be back!

Even walking into the entrance, there are birds flying in and out of the forest and landing on nearby fence posts. We meet our guide for today, Daniel, who takes us down to an enclosure surrounding a lake. It’s a sheltered area underneath the mist, so hopefully we’ll see something cool!

That’s exactly what happens even walking on the track down to the enclosure. A group of four takahe, chunky blue flightless birds with a red face and beak, are plodding along the grassy tracks below. Daniel explains that they act like a herd of cows, just grazing their way around a field. It’s amazing that we see them so quickly! Now we know where they are, Daniel thinks it’s best to go view the tuatara first, then get back to takahe stalking later.

Finding the living dinosaurs

We glide as quietly as possible looking for the three-eyed lizards. Yes, tuatara have three eyes, however the parietal eye does not work for too long into a tuatara’s life and only detects light and dark. What’s more, the tuatara are often described as “living dinosaurs”, as it is the only surviving species of its order from the dinosaur era. The tuatara is really a fascinating creature with lots of fun facts (we should really write a whole article on it).

They blend in fantastically well with their environment, but Daniel, who has the know-how, spots two tuatara almost straight away! One is hidden under some bushes, another in plain sight standing amazingly still. It is enough to see every detail of the “living dinosaur” including the white spines on its back which gives it its Maori name meaning “peaks on the back”.

Now we want to find those takahe again. It is a rare opportunity to see these unusual-looking birds, where there are only around 260 of the birds left in the world (all endemic to New Zealand). They were even thought to be extinct for 50 years! There they are, following a grassy path along a shallow stream. They are moving quickly, and with patience and Daniel predicting where they will walk, we got some perfect close-up views of the birds. We are buzzing!