Beautiful Flowers and Killer Birds

You lookin at ME!

Even though I am in the mountains here all the time sometimes something happens where even a jaded old guide has to admit, this place is unique. I recently returned from a trip to Waterfall Flat on one of our Upper Wilkin Trips.  About this time every year the Mount Cook Lilies are in bloom and the whole valley is lit up with white flowers.  I am not sure why but this season the plants are particularly amazing.  As we climbed through the narrow opening to the valley the flowers grew thicker until it looked like something from a Disney movie on the Dali Lama, we were wading through a sea of huge white flowers.  Slowly I became aware of  the intermittent warning screech of a Karearea (New Zealand Falcon).  I had been warned that a pair of birds had settled in the area but foolishly I didn’t pay them much attention until at one point I bent down to tie my boot lace and when I looked up there was a Falcon leveling out on a track directly at my head.  It was about 20m away and the startling thing was it was looking directly at me, totally focused.  The idea that humans are to be feared clearly had not been communicated to this bird.  With obvious intent it came at me exactly at head height and only flared and avoided a collision when I put my arms up to shield myself from the inevitable collision with my face.  Just as I began to relax another feathered missile just missed my head.  Unlike the first one this bird came from behind  and at a speed I could not really conceive, it was simply a dark flash, a vaguely bullet like sound and then it was gone.  Despite my best attempts to keep an eye on both birds they had an uncanny knack of attacking when I let my guard down.  This tag team attack continued with one bird drawing my attention and the other one coming in for the “kill” until I was crawling on all fours and had scuttled out of their area.  While neither bird ever actually hit me the message was clear, “we are in charge here and if we wanted, we could have you, now get out of here”.  For more information on these amazing birds see http://www.wingspan.co.nz/falcon_facts.html.  For more info on the Mount Cook Lilly see http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/native-plants/mount-cook-lily/.