The five species of kiwi endemic to New Zealand have long been among my favourite birds. Unlike so many NZ birds, all five have managed to survive the predations of stoats and other introduced pests, although their populations are seriously depleted. Intervention by the NZ Department of Conservation and dedicated community-based conservation organisations has been instrumental in bringing kiwis back from the brink. I had previously had fantastic encounters with the North Island Brown and Okarito Brown Kiwis and wrote about them in articles about wildlife conservation in NZ for The Bulletin magazine and The Weekend Australian newspaper. I’ve just returned from a three-week trip to NZ with my partner Glenn where I hoped to do the same with two more species: the Great Spotted and Little Spotted Kiwis.
I started the hunt by heading out at night around Arthur’s Pass (above) high in the mountains of the South Island to listen and look for Great Spotted Kiwi, which is restricted to the island’s north-west. I heard a male calling briefly near the village but it was not interested in playback. More co-operative was a flock of Kea the next morning in the village centre (below).
We headed west of Arthur’s Pass to meet up with Kristy Owens and George Nicholas from the Paparoa Wildlife Trust, which is doing a magnificent job expanding the Great Spotted Kiwi population through a captive breeding and release program. Young birds are held in a 12ha forested “creche” near Atarau surrounded by a predator-proof fence until they are about 12 months old, when they are large enough to fend off stoats and other predators -which remain a threat to eggs and young birds – and can be released into the wild in the Paparoa Range of the west coast. A year after release, about 85% of birds are doing well.
Five birds were in the creche at the time of our visit, each weighing about 1.2 kilos and therefore almost ready for release. We radio-tracked one bird which leapt from cover and eluded us. Eventually we tracked down another kiwi (above) which Kristy gently extracted from a burrow it was sharing with a second bird. After weighing, measurements and other checks (below), the bird was taken back to the burrow.
Satisfactory as this encounter was, I was hopeful of further meetings with wild kiwis. We moved on to the west coast town of Punakaiki. I headed off at night to a well-known kiwi hotspot – Paparoa National Park, and Bullock Creek Road (below) which leads to it. Over several hours I heard a male and a female calling from the Inland Pack Track in the park and another male calling from the roadside. Then I saw a kiwi briefly before it disappeared in thick undergrowth. I heard 3 other male kiwis calling at different sites: on the main road south of Punakaiki where the Westland Petrel colony is located; on a nearby private property where petrels nest; and at the Waikori Road end of the Inalnd Pack Track. All up I saw 1 wild Great Spotted Kiwi and three others in the creche, and heard a total of 7 birds in different places, suggesting their population locally is not doing too badly.
We left the South Island for Wellington where I hoped to see the Little Spotted Kiwi on the 225ha Zealandia Ecosanctuary on the city’s outskirts. The reserve is owned by Zealandia, another private community group doing excellent work in the never-ending battle to protect NZ’s endangered wildlife. Described as the first reserve of its kind on the main islands, Zealandia is surrounded by a 8.6km predator-proof fence (below).
The project has reintroduced 18 species of wildlife back into the area, several of which had long been absent from the NZ mainland. Some, like the Kaka (below), had become extremely rare in the Wellington area but are now common thanks to the nesting and feeding haven provided by Zealandia.
Among the reintroductions is the Little Spotted Kiwi. About 150 kiwis thrive in the reserve (below) and the public has the chance to see one during guided nocturnal tours. I joined a tour and found it somewhat frustrating; more than half the time was during daylight and twilight hours, focusing on animals that can be more easily seen during the day. Our guides didn’t seem to be overly interested in locating kiwis.
Eventually, while watching semi-nocturnal Brown Teal moving up a streamline, I heard a rustle at my feet, looked down with my pencil torch, and there was a kiwi less than a metre away. It scratched about as it walked across my feet and a nearby track. By the time the rest of the group got on to it, the bird was moving away; these images were the best I could manage with the compulsory red filters on the guide’s torches. The guide was talking so much it was not possible to track what the kiwi was doing, but a memorable experience nonetheless.
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