I went for a walk in the botanical gardens today and discovered the bird responsible for the overwhelming birdsong I hear when i go running or walking in the bush around Dunedin. It makes a really weird series of calls. Supposedly some of it is beyond our audible capacity. the bird is called a Tui. Because this blog site is stupid it wont let me upload an audio file of the song; go here instead:
http://www.nzbirds.com/birds/tui.html
click on the audio file on the right side of the page. Those of you who dont like birds and or birdsong, probably shouldnt bother.
Its mostly a nectar drinker, and in the botanical gardens at least, there were many of them all drinking from the Kowhai (Sophora microphylla - for geeks and botanists) trees.
Kowhai is Maori for yellow, and you can guess the colour of the flowers. Its a legume, but it grows quite big and is really colourful at this time of year. Its also poisonous in the bark and seeds.
Tui is a popular type of beer found down these parts too.
this is the other song commonly heard around here:
http://www.nzbirds.com/birds/korimako.html
(click the audio file - you know the drill)
try opening both link at the same time and playing the songs together. then you can pretty much experience the local bush sounds.
1 comment:
Great, I had both birds singing at the same time - it is pretty exotic to my Enlish tuned ears - much more like sounds we heard in South Africa - particularly the Oriole.
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