A seasonal event...

This little story brought a broad smile to the probligo dial this morning. It is an annual event, one that I have enjoyed on a number of occasions.

The guava fruit are ripe, and if not picked they start to ferment on the tree.

NZ has a native pigeon, Maori name kukupa or kereru depending upon who you listen to. They are BIG pigeons. If you compare a house sparrow with the common rock pigeon (the one that lives in just about every city in the world) then kukupa is about that many times bigger than the rock pigeon and a bit more.



Beautiful, huh!

These birds live on fruit, including fermented guava.

The Herald tells the story...

Drunk kukupa (native wood pigeons) and tui have been indulging in some very human behaviour - getting drunk and crashing into cars and windows.

The pigeons' tipple of choice is fermented guava juice. Even the usually sober tui are falling prey to the small, tasty fruit.

Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre manager Robert Webb has admitted around 12 drunk, injured kukupa and tui to his "bird hospital" in the past three weeks. The problems are a repeat of last July, when kukupa gorged themselves on loquats and totara berries.

"They get so drunk they get disoriented and don't notice where they're flying," Mr Webb said.

While it only takes a day for the birds to get over their hangovers, their injuries - which include bruising, spinal damage and damaged feet - can take weeks to heal.

Update -

This exchange by email deserves to be here too -

Reviewing The Reed Dictionary of New Zealand Slang, David McGill wrote: "More than 30,000 entries cover the astonishing range of weird and wonderful communal sayings that give Kiwi speak its distinctive flavour. From the earliest days, the interaction of Maori and English has generated the most incontrovertibly Kiwi slang, from komaty and pissed as ten pigeons under a mockamock tree through the many variations of up the boohai shooting pukakas to recent contributions such as electric puha, Tegel pigeon, the kapaiburger and the kotanga aerial."

The above is an extract from a story posted at http://www.bdb.co.za/shackle/articles/ten_pigeons.htm

Can you please tell me the mockamock tree's botanical name? (I've never heard of it).

Cheers, Eric.

This is the best I could do with his question...

Eric, this is going to be sheer guess on my part, but I will give you the trail as well.

Some kiwi-isms like "boohai" are easy - generally accepted as a corruption of Puhoi, a small settlement at the very upper reaches of the Auckland Harbour (Waitemata) it used to be a week by horse and cart (or bullocks during the winter) to get there from Auckland. Steam shipping reduced it to a days steaming. It is now about an hour by car.

So, to "mokamok tree"...

Start here with favourite pigeon (kereru) food -

Note the reference to the fuschia.

Here is the tree fuschia

Known as Konini or Kotukutuku and it is the corruption of kotukutuku that makes me think that might be the answer. It does make a VERY nice alchoholic beverage, but it would be an acquired taste for most.

As I said sheer guess with no scientific or etymological justification. I had never heard it until you produced it.

BTW "electric puha" is cannabis.

"Kotanga aerial" just occurred to me as I was typing this - reverse the corruption and it becomes "coathanger aerial".