Why save native birdlife if all they do is sing from dawn till dusk?

[Hepcat]

This does both annoy me and make me laugh. People are complaining about the birds in the bird sanctuary because there are more birds than there used to be (which of course is the point of a bird sanctuary) and they make noises.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/080106/3/3i90.html

I don't see what the complaining people expect the bird sanctuary to do about it. Maybe the complaining residents want the sanctuary employees to just toss a cat over the fence every now and then to slaughter the native birds just so the noise level is more acceptable to these few grumpy Wellingtonians.

Or maybe a more realistic option can be derived from the sanctuary's conservation specialist:

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.

Obviously a baby tui singing school is in order.

So what are your thoughts? Would you complain? Just deal with it? Buy earplugs? Better soundproof your house? Or go next door with a shotgun (I hope you won't choose this option )?

[Fragony]

Just shoot these people. Reminds me of the enlightened cityfolks that move to our plains, suddenly they realise that their food actually has to be grown and that the land needs furtaliser which is smelly. And of course they have all the sophisticated understanding in the world for that but they want to keep communicating a solution.

[Vladimir]

Do they taste good?

Edit: THE BIRDS!

[Pannonian]

Do they taste good?

Depends on how you cook them, I suppose. My guess is that cityfolk are slightly more tender of flesh and richer in fat, but countryfolk are slightly more sinewy but stronger in flavour.

[FactionHeir]

Hmm personally I get quite annoyed at birds sitting on some window porch and making noise after midnight or too early in the morning. Prevents me from getting any decent amount of sleep especially during spring and summer.

Living in a concrete city is supposed to alleviate the problem, but doesn't seem so.

Call me grumpy if you like, but if you are in that situation, I would doubt you would enjoy it.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Gah! Who cares about singing Tui?

Instead, click here for pictures of chicks and some great tits!!

[El Diablo]

I live not too far away from the Karori Sanctuary (probably 10km) and I have noticed a huge increase in the number of tui's even around my place. As a kid is was very very rare to see one and now there may be 5 in one tree outside my window. They are a pretty cool bird if you aski me.

Yes they are loud. (but not horrible sounding like a seagull).
Yes they start to sing outside your window at 4am. No good!

But what some of our non-kiwi orgahs may not know is that "Tui" is also the name of a great band of beer in NZ as well a bird.

So I think it is a joke that people complain about hearing tuis - it just gets me thirsty!!! Mmmmmmm Tuiiiiii.

[Papewaio]

People can get used to aircraft flight paths. Birds are easy. They can always sell up and go somewhere else... hopefully nosier.

[Hepcat]

People can get used to aircraft flight paths. Birds are easy. They can always sell up and go somewhere else... hopefully nosier.

My thoughts exactly. When we had the bigger birds in our aviary like doves and canaries and finches in our bird aviary then they would start chirping early in the morning. But our neighbours have never complained, one of our neighbours said that they liked waking up and hearing our birds. We also have tui in the kowhai tree out the front of my house and I hear them when I wake up, but they never wake me up. Not like the people who race cars up and down our street during the night.

The people complaining must never have gone camping. Cause when we go camping up North, where the nearest shop is 20 minutes away, up there EVERYTHING seems to be making a noise at all hours.

And FactionHeir, I understand that you may be frustrated. Maybe you could sleep with ear plugs? Or play music all through the night (something one of my friends has done for years and swears by it as a means to get a good nights sleep)?

And at Louis. You must be either a bird enthusiast or just someone who has tried putting lots of rude things into the wikipedia search.
Since you're French I would assume the latter course of action is more likely.

[R'as al Ghul]

Behold the face of evil:





Offering: a 4 family flat with lots of noisy brats, neighbours that don't care about each other, roadworks, heavy traffic, weather
Searching: nice house near the Kaori sanctuary where I'm woken up by birds

[Pannonian]

Does anyone have any kea stories? From what I've heard, they're supposed to be the New Zealand equivalent of Gibraltar's apes, and the monkeys in some Indian temples.

[R'as al Ghul]

I have no personal experience with Keas but it's not true that they are such a pest as the monkeys. They don't live in cities, they're the only parrots that live in mountains. But it's true that they're very intelligent and curious. They quickly learned that travelers will feed them and will wait for them at the parking places. They also like to dismantle everything, from windscreen wipers to shoelaces. I remember a film by a German team who went into the mountains and intended to film some kind of wild goat species. They had all kind of photo and camping gear tied to the roof of their camping van when they met the keas who quickly started to untie every knot holding the gear, puling out tent herings, stealing supplies and any small objects, etc. It was soon clear to them that their documentary would be about the keas instead of the goats. The pictures they made were fascinating. It was fun to see the keas sliding down snowy hills on their back for fun and such.

P.S: Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRW4ztbY8Ok

[Shaka_Khan]

I've never heard of a Tui before.

Birds help spread the forest by swallowing the seeds of the trees and then dumping them on the ground.

[CountArach]

I get birds nesting above my room every now and again. You get used to it.

[LittleGrizzly]

My old house used to be terrible for bird noises, there used to be an owl going all through the night replaced by some chirpy birds in the early hours...

[El Diablo]

A tui is a native bird of New Zealand and is (to the best of my knowledge) not found anywhere else. It was also known as a "Parsons bird" due to the white tuft making it look like a "vicar".

They used to be very rare around the suburbs of Wellington until they built a predator proof fence around Wellington's old water reserviour site (near Karori) and made a bird santuary in the midst of the city. An absolutely terrific idea and if you are ever in Wellington I highly recommend a trip there, tui, kaka and now they even have a few Tuatara (lizards species as old as dinosaurs) as well.

But as the link from the OP suggested people (in a noisey city) are complaining about the noise of a few birds. Pretty funny and stupid really. Plus to complain the ring the sanctuary to complain - like they are the sanctuary's pets!!

As for Kea they are not a huge problem (like monkeys can be) as there are not that many of them and their habitat is pretty limited and does not really overlap with people apart from on ski fields etc. They are up there as one of the coolest animals on the planet - just for sheer personality.

[Hepcat]

Does anyone have any kea stories? From what I've heard, they're supposed to be the New Zealand equivalent of Gibraltar's apes, and the monkeys in some Indian temples.

I was a Kea when I was in Primary School.

Sorry, that was a horrible joke. The the little kids in the scouting group before the cub scouts group are called kea for all the non-Kiwi members who wouldn't have gotten my stupid joke.

I've never actually seen a real kea before because I live in the North Island and have never been to the South Island. My science teacher kept saying how, although they can work out how to untie things and pull things apart, they are a stupid creature evolutionarily-speaking since they made themselves so vulnerable to the people who hunted them because of their curiosity. The government actually put a bounty on them which lasted up until 1970 which is why there are hardly any left.

I've always thought it would be fun to have one as a pet.

[Vladimir]

Wow, that's a rather 19th century teacher.

[Viking]

Gah! Who cares about singing Tui?

Instead, click here for pictures of chicks and some great tits!!

Great Tits are common in Norway; I saw a couple of them bouncing outside my window this morning...


They are not so noisy though, I think you went a little off topic.

[Louis VI the Fat]

And at Louis. You must be either a bird enthusiast or just someone who has tried putting lots of rude things into the wikipedia search.

Are you insinuating that I spend my evenings googling for stuff like 'great tits' and in so doing accidently stumbled upon the existence of a bird species with this amusing name!?

Shame! Shame on you!

No, what really happened is that I am an avid birdwatcher. And so, last winter, I worked as a volunteer bird counter. For four months I lived in a tent in the Welsh marches. I was completely cut off from civilisation, no internet, no cell phone, no electricity. Just rain, wind and cold. Fire could scare away birds, so no cooking. I lived off whatever I could catch, supplementing that with grass or tree bark.
My time was spend staring at the skies. Pen, paper and binoculars in hand, waiting for birds to fly over. Every few days or so I would actually see a bird. Exhilarating moments. Then I looked the bird up in my bird encyclopaedia and added it to the list.

This, Hepcat, is what really happened and how I got to know about the great tit.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Great Tits are common in Norway; I saw a couple of them bouncing outside my window this morning...

How very exciting! Looks like I'll be spending my next winter camping in the far north Norwegian wilderness then!

[Vladimir]

Don't do that too often or you may have to change your .org name.

Or wait, is it a currency reference?

[Papewaio]

My science teacher kept saying how, although they can work out how to untie things and pull things apart, they are a stupid creature evolutionarily-speaking since they made themselves so vulnerable to the people who hunted them because of their curiosity.

Your science teacher cannot be particularly bright (what's happened in the last 20 years to NZ education???). And clearly doesn't understand evolution, I hope he isn't your biology teacher. I'd take your science teacher to task if I heard him teaching that muck to any of my kids.

He/She is confused with what makes something survive. Intelligence is not an automatic pass for an animal to survive. Intelligence will not help against a lot of things in nature, humans are an exception to the rule as most great species rely on far less intelligence (ants to great whites). We are not particularly good physically at anything... apes are generally stronger, bigger teeth, climb better, on the ground other predators are faster and more deadly. We are one of the few to survive long enough that intelligence side benefits have become apparent. But intelligence by itself does not a great survivor make. Most living items survive quite well with little to no intelligence... How many Kauri do you see untying shoelaces? Is plankton intelligent because they are so prolific?

Therefore to say something is not intelligent because it is dying out is a perverse bit of logic. Most animals that haven't been exposed to humans are relatively friendly to them... it's the survivors of that first contact that have to learn/DNA to stay away. So Kea's being friendly and playing games and co-ordinating puzzle solving are in fact all signs of intelligence.

[Louis VI the Fat]

a bird santuary in the midst of the city. An absolutely terrific idea and if you are ever in Wellington I highly recommend a trip there, tui, kaka and now they even have a few Tuatara (lizards species as old as dinosaurs) as well.

My other post in this thread about me being an avid birdwatcher was, of course, humourous nonsense. (I should really learn that it works better in a bar, told with animated gestures and to people who know bloody well that the last thing I'd do is lay down in the mud and stare at birds. Not to mention, that if cut off from modern civilisation, I'd die within hours.)

Nevertheless, things like the quote above is why NZ is one of those countries that will invariably make me green with envy. In my next life I so want to be born there. Or maybe I should spend a few months out of this one for an extensive trip there, and see a few Polynesian Islands in the neighbourhood as well. Should be great.

[Adrian II]

Birds are overrated. I've said it before.

[TruePraetorian]

With the expanding "Empire" of humanity, the species of the Aves class (wikipedia is makes me look s-m-r-t ) known as birds are going to eventually either fall out of the sky from CO2 posioning or turn black and have smokers coughs instead of tweeting, so I say take the shotgun option and get some sleep