Tōrea Pango / Variable Oystercatcher

Haematopus unicolor

Endemic. Recovering.

One thing Tōrea have taught me: how many words there are for ‘black’ in te reo. Pango is black, but usually mangu is taught in schools as meaning black. Looked up maoridictionary.co.nz and I found out that tiwha also means black, and kororiko. And mangumangu and māmangu which obviously are related to mangu. Tuauriuri means very black. Whakaaniwaniwa means to turn black. I presume there is some subtlety that is being lost in the dictionary.

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