14.04 Cape Kidnappers: A Tabulation of Tākapu

4.A The Saddle Colony of Tākapu at Cape Kidnappers

This past Saturday morning Jean and I visited Cape Kidnappers, about twenty kilometers (twelve miles) southeast of Napier. We wanted to see the cape and to see the cape's most famous resident: the Australasian gannet, also known as the tākapu. 'Tākapu' is the Māori word for this gannet. Most adult tākapu abide primarily in New Zealand. Some live in mainland Australia and Tasmania. Some of the adult birds residing in New Zealand and apparently all juvenile birds migrate to Australia during the Southern Hemisphere's winter. 


Jean and I were drawn to visiting the cape largely because of easy access. There are two tours that enable visitors to view the cape and its birds from late September into April. One tour takes the 'high' road and the other the 'low' to reach the tip of the cape. Cape Kidnappers defines the southernmost reach of Hawke Bay (The body of water lost the apostrophe in its name just a few years ago by government edict). 

The low tour, run by Gannet Beach Adventures, enables visitors to ride out on tractor-drawn trailers, to a place where they can disembark and hike up to the tip of the cape. If Jean and I revisit the cape we'll probably take the low tour—along and on the beach—just for a different perspective. The low tour only departs at times of low tide. As it happened we took one of the regularly scheduled, guided high tours, offered by Gannet Safaris Overland Ltd. The Safari guide took his bus-van riders through the Cape Kidnappers Station, which occupies some 6000 acres (about 2400 hectares) of the cape's headlands. The station not only serves as a sheep-and-cattle station (or ranch), it encompasses a high-end golf and eco resort called 'The Farm at Cape Kidnappers'. Here below are some shots taken in our travel overland to and from the head of the cape.

4.B Lodging at the Farm at Cape Kidnappers

4.C Grazing Sheep

4.D Faulted Cliff Facing Hawke Bay

4.E Grass and Brush, Cape Kidnappers

4.F Cape Kidnapper Slope Erosion -- Caused by Rabbit Burrowing

4.G More Evidence of Rabbit-Caused Slope Erosion

4.H A Flock of Clouds above a Flock of Sheep

The community of gannets on the Cape Kidnappers headland reportedly constitute the largest mainland gathering of any kind of gannet anywhere in the world. Before human beings showed up in New Zealand—apparently by best estimate in the late 13th Century A.D.—the islands were a veritable bird paradise. Before the human era the only mammals in New Zealand were bats and, along the coasts, seals. Some of the birds from the early human era in New Zealand are now extinct, most notably the moa. The five kiwi species, a modest bunch, have managed so far to survive. The kiwi name was eventually appropriated to refer not only to these nocturnal foraging birds but also to New Zealand nationals, be they Māori or non-Māori (See Blogpost 13.04). Numerous indigenous birds besides the kiwi managed to retain their Māori names in common New Zealand discourse. Not so the tākapu. 

But no matter to the tākapu or the gannet, an almost unflappable bird. 'Unflappable' would be a misnomer were I not using the term metaphorically.  The birds do fly, after all, and they fly and dive magnificently. They are unflappable in that they are largely unperturbed by human presence, at least if humans are on good behavior (no shouting, running, and so forth). And they're rather orderly in other obvious ways. 

For one, they're organized into so-called 'colonies'. There are four colonies on the cape and each colony has been given a name: Black Reef, Plateau, Saddle, and Whalebone Beach. For another, the colonies favor table-like areas, tabulae, if you will. From a distance each colony almost looks like the tent encampment of a Roman legion. I suppose the use of the term 'colony', derived from the Latin colonia, is at least somewhat appropriate. See more evidence of tākapu orderliness here below.

4.I Plateau Colony with Cape Kidnapper Navigation Light at Left

4.J Plateau Colony with Gannet Safari Tour Bus on Right

4.K Whalebone Beach Colony

The gannets are beautiful birds exquisitely designed to capture squid and fish in high-speed (100 kph) dives. Here in these pictures below we see not the diving but rather the nesting activity of the birds. 

4.L A Plateau Colony Tākapu 

4.M Tākapu and Their Nests in a Row

The chicks will all be out and about in December and January and then take their first flight in late April—by undertaking a 2800 km (1700 mile) journey that entails crossing the Tasman Sea to Australia. How's that for starters! The young gannets spend two to three years in Australia, then return to New Zealand, seeking mates. In their fifth year of life they settle down, as it were, mating and nesting in New Zealand. Most Australasian gannets spend the rest of their lives, twenty-five to forty years in length, in New Zealand. Clearly these birds are more Kiwi than Aussie or, rather, tākapu than mere gannet. 

How does one assess something like the Cape Kidnappers bird venture... I mean for those who like myself can't count themselves as avid birdwatchers? My only prior bird watching, perhaps unsurprisingly, was during the previous stay in New Zealand, when Jean and I visited New Zealand's first kiwi sanctuary in Otorohanga and visited the country's largest ecological island at Maungatautari (as recounted in Blogpost 13.08). Before the appearance of human beings in what is now called New Zealand or Aotearoa the avians were the predominate animal species. The avians are a link to the not-so-distant pre-human past of New Zealand. And in a place like Maugatautari one can begin to sense the magnificence of that past. To be sure, New Zealand is surely still a very beautiful country. But for foreigners with extended stays in New Zealand, I'd say bird watching, if but for part of a day, isn't just for the birds. It's to gain a better appreciation of where New Zealand has come from and what her people have managed to regain.

4.N A Red-billed Gull Comes Nosing Around and Is Watched by a Tākapu

The gannets at Cape Kidnappers seem to be doing well. Depending on the source, one learns there are 13,000 or 16,000 or 20,000 gannets in total in the four cape colonies. Whatever the number, with the efforts of the Cape Kidnappers Station and New Zealand's Department of Conservation the colonies are flourishing at the cape. In the spirit of James Lipton's Exaltation of Larks I'd merely suggest that a community of Australasian gannet colonies, such as at the cape, be referred to as a tabulation of tākapu. In any event and except for the post scriptum below this tabulation of last weekend's bird-watching expedition comes to a close with...

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)

P.S. Last Friday evening we attended a 'Tuscan Summer' concert performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at the Napier Municipal Theatre. Napier was one of several venues in the last swing of the NZSO before wrapping up its 2014 tour season. This concert included a performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, Op. 64, in which an American guest artist was to have been the violin soloist. Two days before the Napier concert that soloist canceled his appearance because of illness. The NZSO concertmaster,  Vesa-Matti Leppänen, stepped into the breach.  Leppänen performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto entirely from memory. The Napier audience was rather impressed, rightly so, I'd say. The critic for the New Zealand Herald, on the other hand, was unable to summon more than a perfunctory recognition of what was accomplished. Critics, I suppose, don't want to be seen to be in the business of saying 'Wow!' Yet I think we were right to be wowed by what Mr Leppänen accomplished. And we're right to be wowed by the beauty, elegance, and mystery of the world we've been given to inhabit and steward. The tākapu is another reminder of the wonder of this world, thanks be to God.

4.O Sunset over Cape Kidnappers as Seen from the Napier Marine Domain