The smell of New Zealand

The waters off Auckland are quite different from what we are used to in the Puget Sound. We saw no kelp, very few water birds and no mammal sea life during our visit. Perhaps these contributed to the relatively clean smell of the area, with little life washing up on the shores to give off the familiar oceanic smell I’m used to. Sure there are gulls here, mostly silver gulls in populous areas and the Great Black-backed Gulls out on the islands but the numbers are far fewer than we are used to seeing around Seattle. One exception was the colony of Great Black-backed Gulls on Rangitoto island where there were thousands on shore. 

This, in combination with the spring rains and breezy air, leaves a relative absence of odor, so when odors occur they are quickly picked up. For example, walking around Rangitoto and Tiritiri Matangi islands we noticed occasional rushes of ambrosial fragrances. We did not see any major flowering plants to attribute this olfactory pleasure to, it just seemed to arise out of the bush. 

On the night of October 12 we stayed on Tiritiri so we would have a chance to see the Little Spotted Kiwi, Little Penguins and possibly the Tuatara, an ancient reptile thought to be related to dinosaurs. We left the bunkhouse at sunset with our red filtered headlamps and walked towards the beach where we hoped to score a trifecta. Alas it was probably too cold for the Tuatara who were likely in stupor and too windy for the Kiwi to be out in the open. The Penguins on the other hand had business to take care of. One of our bunk mates, Miles, showed us one Penguin in its burrow, we could just see some white and black deep down. As Miles’ lamp had failed we teamed up to continue our search. 

Coming down the Cable Track trail we spotted our first Penguin out of a burrow. It appeared as a tiny black and white ghost about 50 feet down the trail from us and moved off into the bush after we spotted it. We walked down and saw it rummaging around as we passed and left it be. A short while later we saw a second one, this time it stayed the course as we all stood still in the path. Eventually it came right toward us and passed between our feet sniffing at Miles’ shoes curiously. As it passed I noticed a strong smell of fish. Until now we had not smelled much of anything and we were a good ways from the beach. 

One of the volunteers staying at the bunkhouse, a German woman living in New Zealand, told us about how she helped the scientists microchip the penguins. Her job was to capture the little birds then hold them still while the chips were implanted. I asked how it felt to hold them and she said she didn’t like it much since they bit and smelled badly of fish. Recalling this conversation with the odor we smelled I realized the unique situation we had. Birders often “bird by ear” listening to bird song to identify a species with no need to see the creatures to identify them. In this case I could, for the first time, bird by smell! With the odorless air it was easy to pick up the fishy smell of the penguins and we smelled at least 4 more that night!

-Koji