December 2012 – May, 2013
I can’t talk about pohutukawa trees without mentioning tuis, the birds that flock to them while they’re in bloom. They appear to be black, but if you catch them in the sunlight their feathers reflect a greenish hue, and you can see the white bars on their wings as they fly. Their most outstanding feature are the two white tufts at their throat. They grunt, chortle, gurgle, whistle, sing and can copy the sounds around them. In the spring they get drunk on kowhai berries and fall out of the trees, making it a bird I can especially relate to.
Like the pohutukawa tree gets overshadowed by the tree fern, the tui gets overshadowed by the kea, the mischievous alpine parrot in the south island. But the tui is the only New Zealand bird to have a beer named after it, a well-deserved honor. -Cyndi
