A small native owl, a ruru or morepork, flitted off from our gate as I walked past. A little startling, but always nice to spot - the last time I saw one was last month on my birthday!
Ninox novaeseelandiae novaeseelandiae
The southern boobook has almost 20 alternative common names, mostly regional; of them mopoke/morepork is the most well-recognised. In Māori it is called ruru. Many of the common native names are onomatopoeic, the owl having a two-tone call giving rise to the names such as boo-book, more-pork, mo-poke and ru-ru.
It occurs in most habitats with trees, ranging from deep tropical forests to isolated stands at the edges of arid zones, farmland, or alpine grasslands, but is most common in temperate woodland. Southern boobooks are usually seen singly, in pairs, or in small family groups of an adult pair and up to three young. They are mainly nocturnal, but are sometimes active at dawn and dusk and, in New Zealand, even during the day. The main hunting times are evenings and mornings, with brief bursts of activity through the night. On dark nights they often perch through the middle hours and, particularly if the weather is bad, may hunt by daylight instead.Although their main hunting technique is perch and pounce, they are agile birds with a swift, goshawk-like wing action and the ability to manoeuvre rapidly when pursuing prey or hawking for insects. Almost any suitably sized prey is taken, particularly birds or small mammals and, in New Zealand, wetas.
My favourite article I found about Ruru;
Like most New Zealanders I am well familiar with the distinctive call of the little native owl, Ruru, which floats out of the darkness at night demanding a second serving of the Sunday roast like the ghost of a hungry child. However, it was only a few years ago I got a really good look at the bird, known more commonly as the morepork, which is responsible for the sound.
At the time of our close encounter, I was helping to release grey–faced petrel back into the wild. I had just launched one of the sea birds into the night sky when out of the corner of my eye I saw a small missile flying through the air and the very next moment the petrel was knocked to the ground.
Although the morepork was only half the size of the petrel, I think she would have tried to make a meal of the larger sea bird if we had not been standing around. But instead she glowered at us from the nearest tree with her huge yellow eyes allowing us plenty of time to examine her as she scrutinised us back.
While grey-faced petrel are not a normal part of a morepork diet, the small owls do occasionally eat larger animals which are torn apart with their small but razor-sharp hooked beak. The morepork menu more usually includes moths and beetles caught on the wing as well as small animals such as mice, baby rats, lizards and birds usually no larger than themselves. This type of prey is commonly eaten whole with indigestible bits like the bones and feathers being regurgitated in a sausage shaped pellet from the mouth.
All owls have been designed by nature as superb hunting machines with the particular intention of operating at night. The plumage of an owl is exceptionally soft with softened feather edges which enable the birds to fly silently through the air so that they can approach their prey without warning. Owls have excellent hearing with their disc–shaped faces designed to direct the slightest sound to the large ear openings. In addition, owls have very flexible necks which can rotate 270 degrees to look for prey from every possible angle and large shining eyes designed for optimum binocular vision in low intensity light.
Talking of large shining eyes, Ruru is an important part of Maori mythology and tradition. For example, many of the carved figures seen on Maori meeting houses have had their eyes modeled on Ruru and when performing the war dances of the haka and the pukana the glaring looks from the Maori warriors are also imitating the fiery little owl.
It is hardly surprising that, in Maori mythology, Ruru which hunts by night on silent wings and has a melancholy hooting call, is associated with the spirit world. In fact the special ancestral spirit of a family group is thought to take the form of Ruru. Known as Hine–ruru, the “owl woman”, Maori traditionally believed that these owl guardians had the power to, protect, warn and advise. According to such beliefs, the presence of a morepork sitting in a conspicuous place nearby, knocking on a window or even entering the house signifies a death the family while the high piercing call of the morepork is thought to herald bad news and the ordinary call to indicate good news on the way.
There is a lot of good news going on around New Zealand today as Ruru is widespread. The morepork call is said to be the most common native animal sound heard at night.
So there you are, not massively rare, but nice to spot all the same. I shall keep an eye out for them in the future, and definitely not let them inside the house.
All this talk of more pork is kinda making me want to cook up a roast tomorrow....
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