nother bird which seemed to have survived on Stewart Island after disappearing elsewhere is the South Island kokako. This was once regarded as a member of the crow family - although any resemblance to this formally attired bird is superficial - and one of the bird's early English names was the orange-wattled crow. Fortunately, the more attractive Maori name is now generally used. Although common on Stewart Island in the days of early Pakeha settlement they dwindled quickly in numbers and by the turn of the century were already rare. Herbert Guthrie-Sniith travelled to Mason Bay, Port Pegasus and the Rakeahua River in 1910 to try to photograph this bird and although he saw one or two he was not able to record them on film. Despite this, his private notes on the habits of the bird are valuable:

Noticed a pair of crows feeding in the stinkwood eating their simple fare very delicately and like an epicure. When alarmed or startled or less than that, [they] make a line to their headquarters hopping on the ground with the confidence of often travelled tracks. They do not hop but each bough lends them its springing life , Poetry of motion.

Poetry of motion it may well have been, but this habit of moving on the ground would have served it poorly once cats arrived.

Rhys Buckingham, a Nelson ornithologist, is confident there is an isolated population of kokako in the south around Port Pegasus. He has heard calls there and a feather has been found further north in the Rakeahua Valley, so it seems that the bird still survives, although perilously close to extinction. The South Island kokako differs from its North Island cousin by being a much more retiring bird, and as it does not spend its mornings calling from the topmost branches of trees, it is much more difficult to find. Probably the brisk winds of the south of Stewart Island play a part in this. Any bird which attempted a dawn chorus from the top of a tree would probably find itself whisked towards the Antarctic in very short order.

Besides birds, Stewart Island also supports a great variety of plant life. The muttonbird scrub, known by the Maori as tete a weka, with its large leathery leaves, seems to fill the role here of the pohutukawa further north. These leaves were once used as a novel way of sending postcards from the island, although the Post Office, rather unsportingly I feel, no longer allows this to be done.

Botanists say that every type of vegetation on the island differs significantly from that on the neighbouring South Island, developing its own individual forms during the 10,000 years or so of isolation. Many of these plants have been collected together and can be seen at the Moturau Moana Reserve a short distance out of Halfmoon Bay on the road to Horseshoe Bay.

Out from Halfmoon Bay there are numerous walks which even the only moderately fit can tackle. For the fern fancier, the prospects are particularly good along the track following the old logging road towards Dynamite Point, but these ferns are unfortunately showing some of the effects of browsing by the introduced white-tail deer. Another walk is the track which takes you north along the coast to Maori Beach. This enables you to see some of the finest coastal and bush scenery on the island and can reasonably be done in one day.