Fit for goal: The tūī was the primary to be recorded for the hen name on radio. Photo / Getty Images
The hen name that precedes the information bulletins at 7am and 9am is among the best-loved options of RNZ National’s Morning Report. Its origins may be traced again to 1948 and a technical problem
for a fledgling broadcasting service.
“It’s my understanding,” says former Morning Report co-presenter Geoff Robinson, “that it originated back in the days of the shortwave service. When a programme on the service didn’t fill the allotted time slot they would play the sound to let listeners know that there was a station at the end of it and there would be a programme coming.”
That first hen was a tūī that, in accordance with an account on this journal on the time, possessed a cry with “musical intervals which in pitch and rhythm suit the purpose very well”.
The identical piece described the auditory obstacles that hampered the primary effort at getting a recording. These included a sudden breeze, a tomcat, vociferous youngsters, a practice whistle, a canine and a “woman [who] drove up in a car and called out an enthusiastic greeting to a friend”.
Both the bird-call custom – and the shortwave service – have survived, and the previous, in its current incarnation, will mark its harmonious half century at 1 minute to 7 on February 6.
Fifty years in the past, there was only one hen – as one other report shamelessly famous, issues have been achieved “on the cheep” – and it could possibly be heard seven occasions a day.
Over the years, the unique recording has been supplemented by dozens of different birds whose names are hardly much less euphonious than their calls. On any given day, you may hear tākapu, hoiho, pīpipi, kea, koekoeā, pīpīwharauroa or riroriro.
Former night-time presenter Robert Taylor is credited with a big half in growing the bird-call custom. Proving that punning has all the time been central, he performed the decision of a ruru on his Night Owl present.
Except he didn’t. What presupposed to be the sound of a local morepork was really made by a proficient human mimic and colleague of Taylor. (As we will study later, this was to not be the final human try to tug the feathers over listeners’ ears.)
This imposture was no match for conservationist extraordinaire John Kendrick, who can justly be described because the bird-father of the fashionable RNZ hen name. He smelt a kiore, and on studying the reality provided an genuine name from his personal archive. He went on to provide many extra, all the results of a unprecedented devotion to recording native birdsong over many many years. Taylor later moved to the early morning slot and the hen name went with him.
Kendrick obtained an Old Blue award from Forest and Bird in 2009 in recognition of his contribution to advancing the society’s goals, and was interviewed by Sean Plunket on Morning Report. He displayed a finer ear for ornithological subtleties than he did for the calls of RNZ presenters.
Plunket: Nice to speak to you.
Kendrick: And you. It’s Geoff, is it?
P: It’s Sean.
Okay: Ah, Sean – the opposite half.
Geoff Robinson: I’m right here. I’m listening.
Kendrick recalled how in 1969, after a number of years as audio officer for the Wildlife Service, he had a adequate assortment to take to the nationwide broadcaster and recommend sharing them with most of the people.
Kendrick’s hardest get? “One of the toughest was getting the first recordings of the kōkako, if only for the hugely difficult country, because that was pre-helicopter days and we had hours and hours of really tough going carrying up to 75 pounds [34kg] on our backs, all the gear into the Tūtoko Valley where the few birds still were.”
Favourite? “Has to be the kōkako because of its mystic, wonderful echoing organ-like notes. No other bird can produce that sort of call, as far as I know, around the world.”
Kendrick additionally revealed that this had by no means been a possibility to feather his personal nest. He made not a cent from his recordings. It was about “putting the word [out] for conservation, it was keeping birds in front of the public … so naturally we just simply donated them to the NZBC [NZ Broadcasting Corporation].”
Was {that a} huia?
As with any nice custom, the hen name has attracted fable and impressed fascination. Any account should embody the story of How the Huia was Heard, due to an ingenious effort by some decided people. The huia is lengthy extinct and the final sighting was in 1907. Although there was no recording, there was Hēnare Hāmana, who had heard the hen as a young man when he took half in expeditions looking for one. He may recall – and imitate – its cry, and was prevailed upon to make a recording. His huia, in accordance with Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision, the nation’s audio-visual archive, is among the most requested objects in its assortment and has been performed because the RNZ hen name. Armchair philosophers listening to that may wish to ponder that what they’re listening to just isn’t the sound of a huia, however what a huia seemed like. Another inventive deception occurred one April Fool’s Day when some puckish producer performed what presupposed to be the cry of a moa. The scamp!
The bird-call characteristic has even made a contribution to naturalist historical past by serving to to resolve a thriller concerning the reoreo, or grey-backed storm petrel. According to an RNZ report, hen professional Colin Miskelly had a recording of an unidentified hen made in Fiordland, the place it was believed a reoreo colony existed. But it was not till he heard the petrel’s name introduced on Morning Report because the hen of the day that he was in a position to determine his thriller recording for positive and make sure reoreo survived in Fiordland.
At least as soon as, in what could possibly be a traditional case of “always working to improve our services to you”, feathers have been ruffled when the potential of consigning the every day hen name to auditory extinction has been raised. It is truthful to say the thought didn’t fly when the suggestion was made on Morning Report itself in 2005. It generated 3000 emails squawking opposition to the notion.
The New Zealand Herald reported that aggrieved bird-call lovers went to extraordinary lengths to make their emotions recognized. “One woman even hung a ‘Keep the Bird’ banner from her apartment window opposite RNZ’s Wellington headquarters while the programme was on air.”
In what seems to have been an egregious case of messenger-blaming on the time, RNZ communications supervisor John Barr mentioned: “Geoff [Robinson] and Sean [Plunket] thought, ‘Let’s see what the bird call means to New Zealanders’, and the response has been simply extraordinary.”
Robinson doesn’t imagine this was ever a severe risk and remembers issues in a different way. “A guy who did the PR, and I can’t think of his name, floated this idea of planning to get rid of the birds. There was apparently no intention to get rid of them.”
Not then. And not now, as confirmed by RNZ’s principal communications adviser, Kim Grade. There’s nothing fly-by-night about it. Happy half-century, hen name.
