Two in the Bush Page 6

  The shags were a long time coming back and Brian started to get worried, for the weather was getting worse and soon we should either have to go back to the launch without filming them, or run the very real risk that the launch might have to leave us marooned on the White Rocks. The latter prospect did not enthral any of us, for a night spent on the rock would hardly appeal to even the most spartan of souls, but then we saw the shags returning, wheeling through the sky, their strange headlight markings showing up brilliantly white against the darkness of the backs. They flew lower and lower over the rock, and then one, bolder than the rest, swooped in and landed on the nesting site. Within a few minutes the rest, emboldened by his action, had joined him.

  While Jim’s camera was whirring away, I had plenty of time to watch the birds through my binoculars. They were about the size of a European gannet, but with the typical upright stance of the shag and cormorant family; they had beautiful metallic bluey-green backs and white shirt fronts, and the bare skin round the base of the beak and the eye was brilliant orange and blue. They flapped and waddled among their nests, adding bits of seaweed to the structures, and occasionally pinching nice bits of nesting material from their neighbours’ nests, if the neighbours were not looking. In one corner of the nesting site a fully adult youngster, still in his drab, immature plumage, pursued his parent round and round the nest – mouth open, wings fluttering, and wailing peevishly for food. Eventually the mother, bored by his continuous pursuit, stopped and opened her beak to him, whereupon the baby, with a wild squawk of delight, dived in head first, his head and part of his neck disappearing down her throat. This action he accompanied with much wing flapping, so that the parent bird was hard put to it to retain her balance. It really looked as though the baby was trying to disembowel her. Eventually, when it was obvious that she had regurgitated as much as she was able to, he withdrew his head with reluctance and sat there clattering his beak and uttering tiny, self-satisfied wails and belches to himself. The parent bird, obviously relieved, wandered off, hastily swiped a piece of seaweed from somebody else’s nest, and proceeded to do some running repairs to her own.

  By now the wind had increased in force and far below us we could see the launch pitching and tossing as she revolved in tight circles. We had taken all the film we needed, so it seemed only prudent to get off the White Rocks while we were still able to. We found the descent infinitely more hazardous than the climb up had been, but we eventually ended up on the minute beach, scratched and breathless but intact. As we boarded the launch and headed out to sea, a small group of king shags took off from the rock and flew over us, wheeled round and settled on the rock again. I wondered how long these wonderful seabirds could hold out against extinction: the White Rocks are one of the only two nesting places for the king shag in the world, and the White Rocks can hardly be called a desirable residence, for each year a bit more of it is eaten away by the rapacious wind and the sea. Also, there are several different kinds of shag and cormorant in New Zealand, and some of these, the fishermen claim, do damage to the fishing, so they are allowed to shoot them in certain areas – one of the areas being in the vicinity of the White Rocks. Now the average fisherman out to shoot cormorants or shags is either not sufficient of a naturalist to distinguish between the king shag and the other species, or else he simply does not care. As far as he is concerned, the bird is a fish eater and should therefore be shot, so the future of the king shag is, to say the least, uncertain.

  The launch chugged on for half an hour or so and then, through the spray-distorted windows of the wheelhouse, we could see two humps of rock on the horizon, rather resembling the large and small humps of a camel. I went out on deck and peered at our destination through the binoculars: the smaller of the two humps appeared to be nothing more than a desolate lump of rock, unrelieved by anything except the white frill of breakers it wore round its base; the larger of the two humps, however, appeared to have some vegetation on it, and at one end stood the tall shape of the lighthouse. These, then, were the Brothers, and it was here (depending on whether we could get ashore) that I hoped to see the reptile that rejoiced in the name of Sphenodan punctatus, or the tuatara. Brian had sent a telegram to Alan Wright who, together with two companions, ran the lighthouse, asking him if they would (a) put us up for a couple of days, and (b) whether he could catch a couple of tuataras for us. The reason for the last request was that now our time was growing short in New Zealand, and as we could only afford to spend a couple of days on the Brothers, we did not want to spend the time chasing elusive tuataras to try and film them. In due course we had received a laconic reply saying that Alan Wright could put us up, would see what he could do about tuataras, and would Brian please put ten bob each way on a horse called High Jinks, which was due to come romping home at about a hundred to one in some race or other. Brian had been pleased with the telegram but I had felt that the frivolous tone of the whole missive boded ill for us. However, we were there now and all we could do was to wait and see what happened.

  As we got nearer to the larger of the Brothers we could see that it rose sheer out of the sea, the cliffs being some two hundred feet high. On top of a flat area at the edge of the cliff crouched what appeared to be a baby crane looking, as cranes always do, like a surrealistic giraffe. The launch headed for the cliffs below the crane and we could see a group of three people standing around its base; they waved vaguely at us and we waved back.

  ‘I suppose,’ I asked Brian, ‘that that crane’s the way they get supplies on to the island?’

  ‘It’s the way they get everything on to the island,’ said Brian.

  ‘Everything?’ asked Jim, ‘What d’you mean by everything?’

  ‘Well, if you want to get on to the island you’ve got to go by crane. There is a path up the cliffs, but you could never land on the rocks in this sort of weather. No, they’ll lower the net down in a minute and have you up there in a jiffy.’

  ‘D’you mean to say they’re thinking of hauling us up that cliff in a net?’ asked Jim.

  ‘Yes,’ said Brian.

  Just at that moment the skipper of the launch cut the engines down, and we drifted under the cliff, rising and falling on the blue‑green swell and watching the breakers cream and suck at the jagged cliff some twenty-five feet away. The nose of the crane appeared high above, and from it dangled – at the end of an extremely fragile-looking hawser – something closely resembling a gigantic pig net. The crane uttered a series of clankings, groans and shrieks that were quite audible, even above the noise of the wind and the sea, and the pig net started to descend. Jim gave me a mute look of anguish and I must say that I sympathised with him. I have no head for heights at all and I did not relish, any more than he did, being hauled up that cliff in a pig net slung on the end of a crane that, from the sound of it, was a very frail octogenarian who had been without the benefit of oil for a considerable number of years. Chris, wrapped up in his duffle coat and looking more like a disgruntled Duke of Wellington than ever, started Organising with the same fanatical gleam in his eye that Brian always had in similar situations.

  ‘Now I want you to go up first, Jim, and get the camera set up by the crane so that you can film Gerry and Jacquie as they land,’ he said. ‘I’ll go up next and get shots of the launch from the net, and then Gerry and Jacquie will follow with the rest of the equipment. Okay?’

  ‘No,’ said Jim. ‘Why should I have to go first? Supposing the thing breaks just as I get to the top? Have you seen the rocks down here?’

  ‘Well, if it breaks we’ll know it’s unsafe and go back to Picton,’ said Jacquie sweetly.

  Jim gave her a withering look as he reluctantly climbed into the pig net, which had by now landed on the tiny deck of the launch. The skipper waved his hand, there was a most terrifying screech of tortured metal, and Jim, clinging desperately to the mesh of the pig net, rose slowly and majestically into the air, whirling slowly round and round.

  ‘I wonder if he gets net-sick as well as sea
-sick?’ said Jacquie.

  ‘Sure to,’ said Chris callously. ‘To the best of my knowledge he gets sea-sick, train-sick, car-sick, plane-sick and home-sick, so I can’t see him escaping being net-sick as well.’

  Jim was now about halfway up, still twisting round and round, his white face peering down at us from between the meshes of the net.

  ‘We’re all mad,’ we heard him yell above the sound of the sea and the infernal noise the crane was making. He was still yelling presumably insulting remarks at us when the net disappeared over the edge of the cliff. After a pause it reappeared again and was lowered to the deck, where Chris stepped stoically into it. He stuck his nose and the lens of the camera through the mesh of the net and started to film the moment he was lifted from the deck. Higher and higher he rose, still filming, and then suddenly, when he was poised halfway between the launch and the top of the cliff, the net came to a sudden halt. We watched anxiously but nothing happened for about five minutes, except that Chris continued to go round and round in ever diminishing circles.

  ‘What d’you think has happened?’ asked Jacquie.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps Jim’s jammed the crane to get his own back on Chris.’

  Just as I said this the crane started up again and Chris continued his majestic flight through the air and disappeared over the cliff edge. We discovered later that Jim had set up his camera and tripod in such a position that Alan Wright could not swing the crane in, but Alan was under the impression that Jim had to be in that particular position, so he kept Chris dangling in mid-air. It was only when he saw Jim leave the camera, find a convenient rock and, squatting on it, take out a bar of chocolate and start to eat it, that he realised that he had been keeping Chris dangling like a pantomime fairy to no good purpose, so the camera and tripod were removed and Chris was swung in, demanding vociferously to know why he had been kept suspended in mid-air for so long.

  The net was sent down once again, loaded up with our gear, and Jacquie and I reluctantly took our seats.

  ‘I am not going to like this a bit,’ said Jacquie with conviction.

  ‘Well, if you get scared just close your eyes.’

  ‘It’s not the height so much,’ she said, glancing upwards, ‘it’s the strength of that hawser that worries me.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,’ I said cheerfully. ‘I expect it’s been carrying loads like this for years.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ she said grimly.

  ‘Well, it’s too late now,’ I said philosophically, as the crane started its banshee-like screech and we zoomed up from the deck of the launch at the speed of an express lift. The wide mesh of the net gave you the unpleasant impression that you had been rocketed into the air without any support at all, and as you revolved round and round you could see the waves breaking on the jagged rocks below. The launch now looked like a toy and, glancing up, the top of the cliff appeared to be a good deal higher than Everest, but at last we reached the cliff edge and were swung in and dumped unceremoniously on the ground.

  As we disentangled ourselves from the net and equipment, a stocky man who had been operating the crane came forward and shook hands. He had a freckled face, vivid blue eyes and bright red hair.

  ‘I’m Alan Wright,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘There were moments,’ I said, glancing at the crane, ‘when I began to wonder if we should ever meet.’

  ‘Oh, she’s all right,’ said Alan, laughing, ‘she just maithers a bit when she’s got a load on, that’s all.’

  We got the equipment up the final slope to the lighthouse on a sort of elongated trolley, drawn up the hillside by a cable and winch. The others decided to walk up but I thought it would be fun to ride up on the trolley and so I perched myself on the camera gear. We were halfway up when I glanced back and suddenly realised that – potentially speaking – this was every bit as dangerous as the trip in the net, for if the hawser that was hauling the truck broke, the truck, weighted down with equipment and myself, would run backwards down the rails and shoot off the edge of the cliff like a rocket. I was glad when we ground to a halt by the lighthouse.

  When we had got the gear safely installed in the one wooden hut which we would all have to share as bedroom and workshop, I turned to Alan eagerly.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘did you manage to get a tuatara for us?’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ he said casually, ‘that’s all right.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘Can I see it?’

  Alan gave me an amused look.

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’

  He led Jacquie, Chris and myself to a small shed that stood not far from the hut we were to occupy, unlocked the door and threw it open; we all peered inside.

  I have, at one time and another, had many zoological surprises, but, offhand, I can never remember being quite so taken aback as when I peered into that tiny shed on the Brothers. Instead of the one tuatara I had expected, the whole floor was – quite literally – covered with them. They ranged from great-grandfathers some two feet long to babies measuring some six inches. Alan, glancing at my face, misinterpreted my expression of disbelieving delight for one of horror.

  ‘I hope I haven’t got too many,’ he said anxiously. ‘Only you didn’t say what size you wanted or how many, so I thought I’d better catch you a fair selection.’

  ‘My dear fellow,’ I said in a hushed whisper, ‘you couldn’t have done anything to please me more. There was I, thinking we might be lucky if we just saw one tuatara, and here you provide me with a positive sea of them. It’s incredible. Did they take you long to catch?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Alan, ‘I got this lot last night. I left it until the last minute because I didn’t want to keep them shut up too long. But I think there’ll be enough for your film, won’t there?’

  ‘How many have you got in there?’ asked Chris.

  ‘About thirty,’ said Alan.

  ‘Yes . . . well, I think we can just about scrape through with a mere thirty,’ said Chris with magnificent condescension.

  We returned to the lighthouse in a jubilant frame of mind and had an excellent lunch. Then we went back to the shed full of tuataras and started to choose our stars. Crouching there in the gloom, surrounded by an interested audience of tuataras, was a fascinating experience. All the young ones were a uniform chocolate brown, a protective coloration which they maintain until they are fully grown, but it was the coloration of the adults that amazed me. Previously the tuataras I had seen had been unfortunate individuals incarcerated in reptile houses in various zoos, where the temperature was kept at a constant eighty or eighty-five degrees – a temperature which is not only totally unsuitable for the unfortunate creature, but which makes it turn a dirty brown out of sheer misery. But these wild-caught adult specimens were how a tuatara should look, and I thought they looked beautiful. The ground colour of the skin is a sort of greenish-brown, heavily flecked with sage green and sulphur-yellow spots and streaks; both male and female develop crests down their backs, but in the male the crest is larger and more prominent. The crests consist of little triangular bits of white skin of the consistency of thickish paper, that run down from the back of the head to the base of the tail. The tail itself is decorated with a series of hard spikes of the same shape, but whereas the spikes on the tail are the same colour as the tail, the crest along the back is so white it looks as though it has been freshly laundered. The males had massive, regal looking heads and huge dark eyes, so large that they resembled the eyes of an owl more than anything. After a lot of deliberation we chose one magnificent male, one young one, and a rather pert-looking and well-marked female. The rest of the horde we left carefully locked up in the hut: firstly because we could not release them until nightfall, and secondly, should one of our ‘stars’ escape during the course of the filming, we had a hut full of doubles to fall back on. But we had no difficulty like this, for every tuatara behaved perfectly in front of the cameras
and did exactly what we wanted.

  Now, although to the uninitiated eye the tuatara looks like nothing more nor less than a rather large and majestic lizard, one of the reasons that it makes naturalists like myself foam at the mouth with enthusiasm is that it is not a lizard at all. It is, in fact, so unlike the lizards in its structure that a special new order had to be created for it when it was discovered, an order called the Rhynchocephalia, which simply means ‘beak head’. Not only did it have the distinction of having a special order created for it, but it was soon discovered that the tuatara is a genuine, living, breathing prehistoric monster. It is the last survivor of a once widely spread group that was found in Asia, Africa, North America and even Europe. Most of the skeletons that have been found date from the Triassic period of some two hundred million years ago, and they show how alike the ‘beak heads’ of those days were to the present-day tuatara; to have come down through all those years unchanged surely makes the tuatara the conservative to end all conservatives. The other thing about this lovely animal that has captured the imagination is the fact that it had a third ‘eye’ – the pineal eye – situated on top of the head midway between the two real eyes, and a lot of unnecessary fuss has been made over this, for tuataras are not unique in having a pineal eye; several kinds of lizard and some other animals have it as well. The young tuatara, when it is hatched, has a curious ‘beak’ on the end of its nose (for tearing its way out of the parchment like shell) and the pineal eye is clearly visible on top of the head. It is an uncovered spot with scales round it, radiating like the petals of a flower. This eye gradually becomes overgrown with scales and in the adult specimens it is impossible to see it. Many experiments to see whether the eye could, in fact, be of any use to the tuatara have been tried: beams of various wavelengths have been trained on it and experiments to see whether the eye is possibly receptive to heat have all proved negative in their results. So the tuatara just ambles through life with its three eyes, a puzzle to biologists and a joy to those naturalists who are fortunate enough to see it. At one time these creatures were found on the mainland of New Zealand, but they have long since been exterminated there, and now they only survive in limited numbers on a few islands (like the Brothers) scattered around the coast, where they – quite rightly – enjoy full protection from the New Zealand government.