A visitor had found the stray kereru on the road at Puriri Bay. Locals know by now that any injured or orphaned bird gets a second chance if it can soon be brought to Karen Walker so that she can take care of it properly.

For Karen her ‘career’ in bird rescue started when an orphaned brown teal joined the rails that like the day of my visit are always hungrily crowding around the open lawn, a familiar habitat to feed in. “There is a small group of teal that lives nearby here. This duck had been orphaned and was likely to die. I ended up sending it to a captive breeding programme when it was strong enough.”

Karen has always been taking care of birds. The episode with the teal got her involved with DoC who were keen to help her get the necessary skills to be able to look after other birds in need of care and protection. She was sponsored to travel to a training workshop and has been getting regular support with feed and advice. “If I need any help I can call on DoC.” Karen said.

It was late January of this year when the kereru arrived. “Tiri was about 1 month old, and still unable to fly. Probably it had fallen out of its nest, maybe when a hawk harassed it or maybe it was pushed of by a gust of wind.” A wood pigeon chick in its nest is like sitting on a dinner plate, as far as a hawk is concerned, a DOC person once had explained to Karen.

At that age a chick still needs to be fed by its parents, so Karen had to care for it attentively. “You can recognise when they are hungry by the way they flap their wings.” But looking after young birds must soon loose its excitement when the small chicks cry for food every 3-4 hours during the day. This becomes another domestic chore that could suffer in a busy day, especially when one doesn’t have Karen’s patience. “Yes, it makes it difficult to go away, especially when the breeding season has begun and chicks that need looking after have turned up.”

Like other social animals, birds are likely to get habituated if they spend much time around people. This will make them less independent and more vulnerable to threats associated with humans, like cats. “You have to avoid imprinting and prevent the birds from becoming too familiar with humans, even if I am the one that is feeding it every day. So I place a mirror in the nest as soon as possible. In that way the bird can start recognising what birds of its own kind look like.”

Taking care of birds involves responsibility, because the objective is not to habituate pets but to prepare it to return to the wild, where food does not magically appear in front of the bird when it flaps its wings and where hawks pounce on the stragglers. “As soon as possible we settle the birds in the aviary so that it can learn to fly.”

In that way Tiri soon learned to use its wings and it wasn’t long before Karen noticed another local pigeon that had been >talking< to it from outside the cage, perhaps telling it of all the nice chicks that lived in the neighbourhood. “I felt the bird was ready so I begun to leave the cage door open.“

Tiri finally left, but came back already the next morning. For a while, as it was beginning to find its way around the food sources in the vicinity, it would still turn up, typically when Karen was working somewhere in the garden. It would position itself to attract her attention for a treat. In providing some supplemental feed, Karen will be careful not to make the bird dependant and to only give it enough to make sure that it would not go malnourished while it was learning to take care of itself.

The garden around the house was green with many native plants, grown from seed collected locally. With dozens of transplanted flax, little islands of diversifying bird habitats are forming where the sheep paddocks meet the bush line.  The regrowth around Karen’s home is slowly developing to offer different food sources. “We trap cats and rats to create a safe environment for the birds around here.”

“I’ve always spent a lot of time in the garden. When we came here 25 years ago and bought this property, you had to fend for yourself. Back then, if you didn’t grow it you didn’t eat it. So we grew many fruit trees, but the soil here is not easy. It took years of seaweed and cow shit, to give it enough fertility to produce some surplus for us.”

“But I like hard work. You get to have the pleasure of the results for the effort you make.”

In late summer people often bring black petrels, the ocean wanderer that flies where albatross and gannets can also be seen. “They are wonderful,” Karen explained as her eyes lit up. “They are not a people bird like others that live in habited areas. They are just passing through on their way out to sea again.”

But when they are healthy again, it is not a question of just letting them out of their cage. “I wait for a day with a good easterly breeze and then take them over to Sugar Loaf. That gives them enough wind to get airborne and sail across the waves.”

“Tiri? I see the kereru a lot less frequently these days, but sometimes it still turns up. On Little Barrier, a kereru like that used to come back for 21 years to the ranger station there.”

A few days after my visit Karen called me again. She wanted to make sure that people would not get the wrong idea about taking in sick birds. “One mustn’t make them pets. It is really important to remember that they are wild birds so that you can let them go when they are ready.”