The rarest species of mainland duck in Aotearoa — Written by Te Korowai o Waiheke Team Member

It’s total pitch darkness. The moon is no more than a sliver against the night, not even enough to be reflected by the ocean. Though everything seems quiet, night has become the best time to see life on the coast.

The low tide left behind lines of trenches in the sand that bubble with tunnelling crabs and sand hoppers, this is the place to stand and wait. Before long I can hear dabbling and the slapping of little webbed feet on the wet sand, so I turn my red light on to have a look at who’s coming. Birds can’t see the colour red, so as the brazen pāteke continued it’s foraging, I was totally invisible.

Pāteke, or brown teal, are the rarest species of mainland duck in Aotearoa. Their population is mainly on Aotea, Hauturu, Northland and the Coromandel, though I had the pleasure of spotting some here on Waiheke recently. Teal are small and fiercely territorial, both male and female are a dark, mottled brown with a small eye ring, the males donning an emerald green head and mahogany chest during the breeding season. Aotea is one of the few places they thrive and feed around coastal estuaries due to its lack of mustelids, so seeing the crepuscular ducks fluffing around the high tide line is a sight that Waiheke can someday aspire to.

I wiggle my toes in the sand and the pāteke still hasn’t spotted me. I’m able to observe and enjoy the presence of one of our most precious manu as it goes about daily life, fussing around for critters in the water without a worry in the world. In that moment I am so grateful for ongoing island predator control and for so much NZ’s fauna to be wholly a picture of bumbling innocence. The pāteke wanders past me to the end of the beach, and I sneak home to bed feeling warm about such a special chance encounter.

- Written and captured by Field Team Technician Charlie Thomas