The recent flap (no pun intended) over noisy tui may seem like a typical silly season non-story, but believe me, it’s a real problem. I live above a major central city intersection, and people sometimes ask whether I’m disturbed by road noise. “No,” I say, “but those bloody birds wake me up at 5 in the morning!” A small patch of harakeke eight floors down is enough to attract hordes of juvenile tui flitting around and chattering and generally carrying on like kids in Manners Mall. Tsk tsk, youth today!
It’s probably just the morning-averse urbocentric biophobic grump in me, but does anyone else notice it? And what is the best collective noun for tui? A disturbance? A larrikin? A raucous?