What’s In Your Garden: Tītipounamu

Endemic & ancient

The beautiful tītipounamu is one of only two surviving members of New Zealand’s wren family, with some academics believing that they have no close living relatives at all. The rifleman can be found across both the North and South Island’s of New Zealand, while only the luckiest of trampers can spot the rock wren in high, alpine areas of the South Island.

The tītipounamu is considered a poor flier and forms lifelong, monogamous bonds. It grows to between 7-10cm in length, and the female is often slightly larger than the male. They only eat insects such as moths and spiders.

The story of Lyall’s wren

This tiny, flightless relative of the rifleman had only ever been seen alive twice by Europeans before it disappeared from human record. Although it’s remains have been found in ancient middens of the similarly deceased, laughing owl, it is generally accepted that the Lyall’s wren was hunted off the mainland by the introduction of kiore, Polynesian rat.

It was last seen on Stephen’s Island, 3.2km from the mainland (believed to have made its way across before the island separated from the mainland), alongside the now-extinct Hamilton’s frog. In 1879 forest was cleared to make way for a lighthouse, followed by the introduction of cats to keep mice populations down.  One cat begins to bring wren carcasses inside, raising the attention of David Lyall, the assistant lighthouse keeper. While the wren attracts international attention, Lyall eventually finds that “…the cats have become wild and are making sad havoc among all the birds.”

By 1895 the bird is nowhere to be found and is proclaimed by the Christchurch newspaper, The Press, to be extinct. In 1897 the lighthouse keeper requests shotguns to take care of the by-now feral cats with the last eradicated from the island in 1925.