Our birdsong is back

Our all-too-human instincts and behaviours reflect our origins in nature, writes Tainui Stephens. When we tell stories and sing metaphors about ourselves, we find our place in the natural world. 

 

We never used to call ourselves Māori. Before contact with Pākehā, we were simply members of this tribe or that. If we defined ourselves as sovereign human beings, we were tangata whenua: people of the land. The word māori is an adjective that means “normal”. We became nouns when people of stark difference turned up.

To be tangata whenua is an achingly beautiful thing. It offers access to the truths of nature and our place within it. Nature is a tough place of predation and struggle. We live it every day.

One of the truths of nature is that birds are big in the Māori world. They’ve long been our kin and companions. They’re sources of food, and their feathers bring warmth and decoration to our best clothing. The character and behaviours of every type of bird offered life lessons to a people who had long observed them. We were fellow creatures, with shared whakapapa and connections to our environment.

When explorer James Cook arrived in Aotearoa, the bush was festooned with a rich diversity of chattering, cackling, cacophonous bird life. It was all a bit too noisy for the crew of the Endeavour. They would weigh anchor a long way from land, so that they could hear themselves speak.

I was first drawn to birds through the metaphors in the songs we sing. An action song I learned in the 1970s was the popular “Ka Tangi Te Tītī”. It was written by a friend, Rev Te Waaka “Sonny” Melbourne. The words start with a well-known proverb:

Ka tangi te tītī, ka tangi te kākā, ka tangi ahau.

As the petrel and the parrot have something to say, so too do I.

The lyrics would go on to say how traumatic it’s been to have our birdsong language taken away, and our traditions ridiculed. Yet we will prevail, sheltered beneath the wings of God’s love.

Some years later, the song got an extra verse that acknowledged the emerging kōhanga reo language movement. The new words said we would nurture the language in the nest of our young, and we will keep our place among the trees of the forest.

To imagine ourselves as birds and to shape our language revival endeavours accordingly was lyrical genius on the part of the founders of kōhanga reo. But it was also a no-brainer for the native mind that’s already attuned to the nature of nature.

Sonny’s brother Hirini Melbourne had many gifts as a manu tīoriori, a songbird. Not only did he sing with insight about the teeming life of his Tūhoe environment, he also put its sounds into the music. In his classic short waiata “Te Rere a Te Tīrairaka”, he describes the way the fantail darts about in flight. In a seamless marriage of voice and guitar, you can easily sense the fantail doing just that. To emphasise the point, he finishes the song with made-up words that portray the bird’s frolic:

Te rere a te tīwaiwaka: tei, tei, ti ti tei . . . tei, tei, ti ti tei . . . tei, tei, ti ti tei.

Like many impressionable Māori of the era, I admired Hirini’s art and wanted to do the same. I then made a fool of myself by composing a waiata inspired by the ancient bush of Aotearoa. I even managed to talk a kapa haka into singing the thing. For about a week, I thought it was a classic of its type. Then we stopped practising it, and I knew it was unalloyed crap. Hirini knew his bush, his mists, and his birds. In my case, it was the know-nothing imaginings of a wannabe native. I’d grown up in a city where nature was mowed once a week.

Some years later, I laughed with Hirini and told him of my poor attempts at imitation. I thanked him for making me realise I wasn’t him. Whatever birdsong was in me, it was mine alone. Even if it meant that I was the only one in the species.

Long after that, at an immersion hui at Waimarama marae, I learned Tā Timoti Kāretu’s classic waiata “Te Aumangea”. In it, he likens young people to the birds of the forest. The great orators of our people were our sheltering and lofty trees. With their irrevocable loss, there was nowhere for us wandering birds to perch.

Matomato ana te tipu mai o te kahikātoa, 

O te tōtara haemata.

Nō te hinganga, tūpapahū ana te whenua.

Ka kore koutou

Kei hea he taunga

Mō te manu kaewa?

We ask, where are the songbirds, the sentries, and the leaders of our aimless flock?

Kia pātai noa ahau,

Kei hea aku manu tīoriori,

Aku manu taki, aku manu tāiko i te kāhui

E pōkaikaha nei?

If we pay attention to the act of memory and the words of our elders, their wishes for us will come to pass. Flourishing trees may once again offer a home for the birds of the forest to sing.

Tērā pea me kapo ko te mahara,

Me kapo ko te kupu

Mā reira e tū mai anō ai he māhuri,

He haemata

E tiu anō ai, e korihi anō ai

Ngā manu o te wao.

When I moved to Ōtaki about 15 years ago, I didn’t notice the birdsong so much. One noisy exception was a pheasant who’d found a home in a large sand dune. He became a warning beacon before an earthquake rumbled through.

In our local ecosystem, the Waitohu Stream estuary and wetland are intimately connected to the sand dunes of Ōtaki Beach. The dunes have been conserved by three decades of commitment from neighbours, volunteers, iwi, and the regional council.

During this year, my office has overlooked the wetland, and I’ve seen much birdlife. Not as much as there once was, I’m sure, but thanks to such environmental action, the birds seem to be coming back.

In the evening, I’ll see kāhu hawks soaring on high and then circle slowly down to drop onto unsuspecting small animals or lizards. Their hovering grace is delicious to behold. In the morning, I may see a pair of black swans or a white heron, gliding up the stream. At any time of the day, korimako or tūī or blackbirds will cavort and swoop above the wetland. They often come to visit the trees by the house. On the way, they’ll pick up strands of the toetoe tussocks down by the river. Their nests are small miracles of maths and engineering.

Two tīrairaka are flitting about in front of me. They’re doing perfect figure-8s around each other. Sometimes they connect in some kind of courting dance. As soon as one tries to snog, they suddenly part. Flit is the right word. If they’re feeling terrestrial, they drop to the ground and bounce all over the lawn.

There was a week when a single tīrairaka would zip into the house daily through the bathroom window. I didn’t freak out and think it a bad omen. I just had a wee kōrero with it while I opened a door to the outside. It always landed on a packing box, had a bit of a look around, then shot straight past me and out the door. The next day, we’d do it all over again.

The soundscape of my day has changed. A full conversation of tweets and chirps emanates from all around. They can be punctuated by sounds like burping bells, or a coffee grinder that whistles. Or there might be a distant chorus of “Quack quack quack quack.” A flock of ducks will appear above the distant tree line and honk their way over the wetland towards the coast. They often fly in a perfect diamond shape. Black and rippling on a rich canvas of sunset.

In the first week of September, as I sat listening to the natural soundtrack of the wetland, my ears were often directed towards new birdsong — but this gorgeous chorus was filled with sounds that I understood.

I had tuned into the superb broadcast of the Koroneihana, the first coronation celebrations of Te Arikinui, Kuini Nga wai hono i te po. Some of our best orators and leaders were arrayed at Tūrangawaewae marae. There are a lot more of them these days. The speeches of these manu rōreka and korokoro tūī thrilled my ears with their melodies and rhythms and meanings. The Māori language in all its variety, dialect and intonation rang throughout the week of the hui. It fell easily from the mouths of young and old alike.

I was moved on the final day when Tā Tīmoti Kāretu rose to speak.

For more than six decades, he has been at the very tip of the tongue of the taiaha that has cleared a way for our language to return to us. On this day, he must have been well satisfied to see and hear the fruits of his long labour of love. Before him was evidence of a people, many of whom he had personally taught and mentored, who had chosen to cherish the memory and words of their elders.

In her first speech to the nation, our stunning young queen reminded us in perfect Māori that Māori unity was her beloved father Kīngi Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII’s dream — and his legacy, too. Unity would come by the simple act of being Māori, every day and in every way. “Kia Māori ia rā, ia rā.”

At the conclusion of her kauhau, the entire marae erupted with the haka “He Oranga Mai”. It was a thrilling cacophony of joyous birdsong. A jostling, prancing throng of utterly diverse tangata whenua giving vigorous and unified voice to a new māori era.

The birds are back, and the bush is boisterous.

 

Tainui Stephens, of Te Rarawa, has been fully engaged in the film and television industry since 1984, working with a range of genres and content. He is particularly attracted to compelling Indigenous stories that critique and celebrate the human condition. Tainui lives in Ōtaki with his wife and fellow filmmaker Libby Hakaraia. Together, they and a small whānau team run the Māoriland Film Festival.

E-Tangata, 2025