A Southland stone, a Southland song…
“I heard the boom of a kakapo, the sound of a takahe shrill, as the sun crept over the eastern ridges and warmed the morning hills…” The song begins by referring to two amazing birds. The first, the kakapo, is unique – a flightless parrot, the world’s heaviest parrot, maybe the longest living bird, which is also nocturnal. The male kakapo produces a low-frequency “boom” to attract potential mates, a quiet call to our ears but it can be heard by another kakapo up to 5 kilometres away. With only about 125 individuals known to exist, the kakapo is critically endangered.
The second bird featuring at the start of John Grenell’s song is the takahe – another large flightless bird, but thought to have been extinct at the beginning of the 19th century. A small population was discovered in 1948 in the isolated Murchison Mountains in southern New Zealand. Still a critically endangered species, ongoing conservation efforts mean that a population of maybe a couple of hundred exists. These two takahe (below) reside at Te Anau in Southland, and I visited them in February 2016 on my way to the beaches of the Southland coast.
John Grenell “Song of Southland”
I heard the boom of a kakapo, the sound of a takahe shrill
as the sun crept over the eastern ridges and warmed the morning hills
I heard the sound of a station hound as it wakens to the day
I once followed the farm dog’s dreams as I wandered on my way
Back to the soul of Southland and a Takitimu memory
Fills my mind with another time, brings her back to me
Back to the soul of Southland and a Takitimu mountain memory
Fills my mind with another time, brings her back to me
She loved the sound of the banjo ring and she loved those mandolin tunes
As I recall she loved them all beneath the Monowai moon
She loved the soft and the easy wind as it whispred through the hill
And I like to think that if I go back again that she’d maybe love me still
Back to the soul of Southland and a Takitimu memory
Fills my mind with another time, brings her back to me
Back to the soul of Southland and a Takitimu mountain memory
Fills my mind with another time, brings her back to me
The times they come and the times they go, you win sometimes you lose
Hey I love my living in every breath and how I love to sing the blues
When I hear a bellbird’s call, my heart jumps in a whirl
It reminds me of some times I spent with a Mararoa River girl
Back to the soul of Southland and a Takitimu memory
Fills my mind with another time, brings her back to me
Back to the soul of Southland and a Takitimu mountain memory
Fills my mind with another time, brings her back to me
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