Back Again!

One kind lady asked about our bird life with particular reference to the Kiwi.

New Zealand is certainly blessed with a wide variety of colourful birdlife in the bushes with many being in the Parrot variety. We go from the tiniest Finch like birds up to as you would recognise the McCaw type. When walking through the bush it is a pure pleasure to listen to the variety of sounds of all these birds.

While speaking of these Parrot type birds |I would mention that there is one that is not welcomed by the Sheep Farmer. This is a bird about the size of a large crow known as the Kea, (key..ah) and these are a bit nasty and have been known to peck and kill off new born lambs. Their favourite past time having done this is to take the eyes. Not a nice little fellow.

Another bird that I should mention is one that like the Kiwi has been represented in many emblems and the like overseas and is the Tui (too ee) affectionately known as the Parson Bird. This bird is black, almost blue in colour except for a very pronounced tuft of brilliantly white feathers on the chin. This has the definite appearance of the Priest's white collar. This bird is quite common and when you hear its song it is definitely the sound of the name.

Then I must of course mention our famous Kiwi, no not us people but the bird. This bird is about the size of a very large Rooster and is brown in colour. It is true to say that not many of us have seen this bird in its natural habitat. It lives in deep bush, is mainly nocturnal in habit and is known to be a very shy bird in nature. Way back in time New Zealand had a giant bird called the Moa which was the same shape as the Kiwi but was enormous in size. It is commonly thought that the Kiwi was related to the Moa but it is now known that this is not quite true. Apparently the Kiwi is related to the Elephant Bird of Madagascar..

Something that should be known about the female Kiwi is the size of the egg she produces which compared to her body size is enormous. It is in fact almost half her body size. It makes ones eyes water just thinking about what she must go through when delivering.

Before leaving our famous Kiwi I will mention a little bit of Maori folklore. The God of the Forest, Tane Mohuta was one day handing out various different tasks to the birds. He wanted someone to keep the grounds clean and tidy and little Kiwi offered to do this task. As this was to be Kiwi's task he/she had no need to fly so sacrificed her wings and became flightless.

Before signing off here I would confirm to you Christabell that you are correct in thinking we have no snakes, we leave them to Australia.

Till next time.........