Memories: I was told to wear gloves

A lifetime of memories from Stu Murray

17 Jan, 2022

I was on the big Chicken Island the couple of weeks before Christmas in 1955 with the Kings College Ornithological Club. Our purpose there was to put rings on the right leg of shearwaters. They are nesting at that time of the year in burrows and come in to feed their mate or offspring just before dark.

Their GPS is perfect and they crash through the trees, landing close to their burrow. We would take them from their burrow and the person ringing would come to you, this making sure the petrel was returned to the right burrow.

All of this was done in pairs with torches. I had a burrow with a petrel in it but my arm wouldn’t go in. Changing hands, it was easy with my left hand as the burrow had a right hand corner. I was well in when something grabbed my middle finger with great force. It didn’t have wings. Ouch! Ouch! And another one. The pain was unbelievable and I made a lot of noise , and had a lot of water coming from my eyes. This got all the lights shining in my direction.

Removing my arm was slow. As well as the corner there was resistance which felt heavy. When I did get my arm out most had gathered around with their torches and all was revealed. I had a large tuatara clamped on the end of my finger. Help was immediate - after the laughter had stopped - with many hands holding the violently wriggling body and others trying to open his mouth with their hands. That was a failure. Someone said they only open their mouths every 100 years. Sticks were tried but broke off or were too big. Someone said try the handles of the ring clamper. It worked but the pain was still there. Tuta was back in his burrow and we looked at my finger. It was a smashed up mesh with spare bits hanging off it.

We went back to camp with the doctor and a helper who had a good torch. Three painkillers, then washed the finger. Doc said he couldn’t stitch it as he really didn’t know what went where. He put it together as best he could, then put large amounts of ointment on it, then gauze bandage and then a pretty stiff finger stall and said “Don’t remove that for a fortnight, just pretend it is stitched up.”

It was light duties for me after that. It helped make a happy camp with smart remarks about tuta. All our master R.B Sibson said next morning was “I told you to wear gloves.” The finger did come back ok, took about a year to get feeling back - sort of. Couldn’t play cricket for the rest of that summer but did play rugby that winter.

Doc said he couldn’t stitch it as he really didn’t know what went where.