This season I’m a hut ranger at Luxmore Hut on the Kepler Track in Fiordland. Some people ask me what it’s like working alone for 8 days at a time. But the truth is, I’m rarely alone. There are plenty of trampers, either arriving at the hut for the night, or passing through on their way to Mt Luxmore for a day hike, or even heading straight on to Iris Burn Hut if they’re prepared for a long slog.
And there are kea! Kea make the world better, bolder, brighter. They always entertain me with an exuberant fly-over or roof-landing and a call to embrace the day: “Isn’t it all so beautiful?” they cry out, no matter what the weather. And with stunning views over South Arm of Lake Te Anau to the Murchison Ranges behind, I never disagree with them. I especially love the days when the clouds seem to be as energetic and playful as the kea, mocking a common human preference for uniform blue skies.
Kea help with tasks such as unloading and stacking away firewood that’s been flown in by helicopter, checking the black water level in the sewage tanks, taking off gumboots, reading the water metre, rinsing out mops and maintaining the track. It’s all interesting work for kea, but I’d be lying if I said that their help meant the tasks were completed any faster.
Watching kea and watching trampers get excited about encountering them, often for the first time, is an endless delight. I try to photograph any banded ones that fly in for a visit. I encourage trampers to do the same, and add their information to the kea database when they come off the Kepler. Shae, with his green band and black 5, is the real ranger at Luxmore Hut. I have taken to wearing a kea band around my neck, black with a bright yellow Q, to try to persuade Shae that I’m worthy of the title ‘ranger.’ I didn’t steal it from a kea, in case you’re wondering, but found it in a jar in the workshop.
One evening I was hanging out near the track to the caves when an adult male kea I hadn’t seen before landed near me and sideway-hopped a little closer, just a little closer and then close enough to begin grooming me. It was a really weird 2 or 3 minutes, and such a gentle head massage. Then he pulled on my hair, perhaps to see if it was actually attached.
Rumours of kea interfering with tents at Iris Burn campsite play on the minds of campers heading that way. I try to reduce their worry by pointing out that whilst they have a lot more chance of having their tent ‘souvenired’ by a kea than of winning big in Lotto, chances are that kea won’t be interested in all the tents in the campground… so they could possibly leave Iris Burn unscathed! If campers put up their tents later, when they were more likely to stay near or in them, rather than trying to nab the best site the minute they arrived, the chance of a kea rip-a-thon would probably be significantly lowered. Oh, the thrill of ripping and ribboning! If we had beaks like that, we’d do it too.
One kea in particular is trying to teach me its language, but it’s going to have to be patient. I can pick up some simple phrases like “How’s it going homo sap?” or “D’you wanna play play play?” but I’m not sure I trust my understanding when it comes to things like, “What’s the stoat count in those traps? Will my babies survive? But I do love the stoats when they’re no longer alive. So juicy and sweet, such a treat treat treat.” I suspect I might just be making that up.
Check out one of my kea language lessons here
I wrote ‘The Kea Blues’ last season on my way up to Iris Burn Hut. It was my first season as a DOC hut ranger. It’s really a celebration of the remarkable and eternally-curious kea. But it’s also an acknowledgement of how our worlds have collided, and that it’s really up to us to find better ways of looking after our stuff instead of complaining about our losses. After all, the kea have a whole lot more to lose than we do. So here it is, without the blues tune:
The Kea Blues
The kea took my shoes
Now they’re mangled and chewed
one inner sole is gone
the other’s ripped in two
And now I’ve got the kea blues
…Oh how I loved those shoes
Waa waa waa waa waa
It’s an alpine parrot
I say alpine pirate
Doesn’t sail the high seas
But likes shredding the breeze
And my blue running shoes
And now I’ve got the kea blues
…Oh how I loved those shoes
Waa waa waa waa waa
It unzipped my backpack
And stole my chocolate bar –
Whittaker’s Italian Piedmont Hazelnut
My favourite by far
And now I’m singing the kea blues
…Oh how I loved those shoes
Waa waa waa waa waa
The kea’s free and wild
A precocious child
Thinks it can do as it likes
For fun and delight
And keep me awake at night
I got the kea blues
…And did I tell you that I loved those shoes?
Waa waa waa waa waa
With a raucous cry
From the trees on high
It summons the gang
And they make a clever plan
To give us all the kea blues
…Oh I really loved those running shoes
Those blue running shoes
But all I’ve got now is the kea blues
Waa waa waa waa waa
The kea blues
…Oh how I loved those shoes
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