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If we could travel to a New Zealand somehow restored to what it was, say, a thousand years
ago, we would have found a wonderland of bizarre and exotic birds, rivaling anything to be
found anywhere else on the planet.
But this marvellous menagerie did not survive the impact of human occupation, first by the
Maori and then the Europeans.
Much of it vanished forever in the face of the onslaught presented by habitat destruction
and the ravages of rats, cats, stoats and other introduced predators.
Now we can only piece together vague and scattered hints from laborious study of a few sub-fossil
remains.
Also early European settlers brought with them many common birds, presumably to remind
them of home.
Some prospered greatly and now the casual visitor driving through New Zealand might
be forgiven for believing himself in Europe.
Indeed, some introduced birds are now more common in New Zealand than they are in their
original homes.
Nevertheless, though much was lost, much survives and there is still a great deal in the New
Zealand avifona to reward the ornithologist and fascinate the bird watcher.
This is a film about those survivors.
In it we ignore the introduced birds and focus our attention on the endemics, those species
that are found nowhere else in the world.
There must be many tourists visiting New Zealand who see no New Zealand native birds whatever
except this one.
It's difficult to miss it.
Keas hang around tourist stops, picnic areas and viewpoints throughout the alpine regions
of New Zealand's South Island from the upper reaches of dense beech forest to the highest
alpine ridges.
A rather large, powerfully built parrot, it is endowed with an unusually strong personality
as well as apparently limitless curiosity.
Almost nothing escapes its attention.
It explores anything newly arrived in its surroundings from tourist coaches to stale
meat pies carelessly tossed aside.
It behaves as though its bill needs constant sharpening.
It seems to test everything to see if it can be taken apart with its powerful, long pointed
bill.
Suitable targets include the ground, rocks, branches of trees and car windscreen wipers
and rubber sealing strips.
All no doubt very entertaining, so long as it's not your car.
In colour, the kea is not much to look at except when it exposes the vibrant red on
its under wings in flight or in sudden alarm.
Males, females and young very little in appearance, although youngsters can be distinguished by
their pale eye rings.
This same world of snow, rock, alpine flowers and avalanches is home also to another bird,
but a bird the very opposite of the kea in almost every aspect of appearance and behaviour.
In the same environment but vastly more difficult to catch a glimpse of is the mouse-like rock
wren, an inhabitant of boulder screes and alpine heath.
Like the kea, it is confined to the South Island, but not especially rare.
Perhaps the best place of all to look for it is the vast amphitheatre at the southern entrance
to the Homer Tunnel, but Arthur's Pass is another spot well worth a search.
The best way to see it is to find a good vantage point above some rock scree, sit patiently
and wait for its thin call.
A good imitation might well tempt it into view, but often only the briefest of glimpses
rewards even the most patient observer.
Male and female are noticeably different, the female much duller and browner than her
mate.
The rock wren is one of the few surviving members of an entire family of passerine birds
confined to New Zealand, characterised by their absurdly short tails, small size and
jerky nervous movements.
The only other survivor is the rifleman, which we shall meet shortly.
Another species became extinct relatively recently, but there have been few reports
this century and so far as is known, this image is the only photographic record ever
captured of the bird.
This large parrot must be counted among the most extraordinary birds on earth.
Almost every characteristic generally associated with parrots as a group is violated by this
strange beast, the kakapo.
On the very verge of extinction, it now occurs only on Codfish Island and Little Barrier
Island, although it remains possible that a few survive in the remoter parts of Stewart
Island.
It's almost certainly extinct in Fiordland, its last mainland stronghold.
Both current island populations consist of deliberate introductions, carried out by the
New Zealand Government as part of a last-ditch attempt to save the species from extinction.
Almost alone among parrots, it is nocturnal.
Terrestrial and flightless, it is so secretive that it is all but impossible to observe without
the help of specially trained dogs or high-tech infrared imaging devices such as the one used
here.
The males attract mates by booming from specially constructed courtship stages.
The kaka resembles the kia in most respects, being about the same size and roughly similar
in colour and behaviour.
It inhabits dense forest, generally avoiding the open alpine country frequented by kias,
but there is considerable overlap.
The calls of the two species are distinct but not dissimilar, and the kaka often calls,
like the kia, in flight high overhead.
At close range, the difference in appearance becomes obvious.
In the kaka, the overall colour impression is red rather than green, and it has a distinctive
silvery cap.
The sexes are similar, and age and seasonal variation is slight.
The kaka occurs on all three of the main New Zealand islands.
It's commonest in dense forests and the more remote highland areas, but it sometimes visits
gardens and city parks, especially in winter.
It's usually encountered in small parties.
Very much smaller than either the kaka or the kia, the most widespread of all New Zealand
parrots is the kakariki, or red-crowned parrot.
This bird is sometimes abundant on offshore islands, though generally uncommon on the
main islands of New Zealand itself.
Its distribution extends to New Caledonia and Norfolk Island, as well as many of the
sub-Antarctic islands, such as the Auckland's and Antipodes.
It once occurred on Lord Howe Island, and even remote Macquarie Island.
Generally much commoner than the red-crowned parrot, if not quite so widespread, the closely
related yellow-crowned is entirely restricted to New Zealand.
It occurs in forested areas throughout the main islands, and on many offshore groups.
It's very slightly smaller than the red-crowned parrot, but there is some overlap, and the
two species cannot be separated on size alone.
The most useful plumage feature is not the yellow-crowned, but the fact that there is
red on the cheek of the red-crowned parrot, and none on the yellow-crowned parrot.
This parrot is especially common in mid-mountain mixed potter-carp forests, where it feeds
on a wide range of plants, flowers, buds, shoots and seeds.
Though there is little to choose between the two parrots in general behaviour, the yellow-crowned
is perhaps a little less likely to feed on the ground.
Birds called robins occur in woodlands almost everywhere around the world.
Although often only very distantly related, these birds nevertheless share a number of
features in common.
One of these is their feeding habits.
They are usually pounce feeders.
That is, they perch low, a metre or two off the ground, scanning the woodland litter below
for their insect prey.
They pounce to the ground, carrying off their prey to the same perch or to another one not
too far away.
Another characteristic that the New Zealand robin has in common with some populations
of its European namesake, the bird of Christmas card fame, is its extraordinary tameness.
In suitable rural environments, English and New Zealand gardeners alike are familiar with
the robin's endearing trait of perching on the shovel handle when its user pauses to
rest or flits silently around one's boots as one digs.
Although the New Zealand robin is most common in deep forest, it's no less tame wherever
it occurs and will fearlessly approach for handouts at any woodland picnic spot.
Not perhaps the most colourful of birds, both male and female are an indistinct shade of
grey with paler bellies.
Youngsters may show a hint of brownish bars in the wings.
Smaller, somewhat more boldly patterned and slightly more colourful than the New Zealand
robin is its close relative, the tomtit.
Common in most kinds of woodland throughout the country, it's very similar to the New
Zealand robin in general behaviour, but is generally most common in mid-altitude podocarp
forest.
Females are brownish, where males are black, and generally much duller.
As in most birds, young males can appear extremely scruffy and bedraggled when in active molt,
like this one.
The brown creeper is restricted to the South Island and Stewart Island and a few small
offshore island groups.
Very much a forest bird, it normally occurs in parties or small flocks.
An unusual shade of smoky reddish-brown above, it is readily identified by the sharp contrast
of dark cap and silvery grey throat.
The sexes are similar, and the young resemble adults.
Though by no means rare, it forages most often in the canopy high overhead.
In spring its song is distinctive, but most of the sounds it routinely utters through
the rest of the year are undistinguished.
They sound very much like the miscellaneous tweets and twitters of many other forest birds,
unseen in the forest, so it's frequently overlooked.
Always on the move, the birds fossock actively in their ceaseless search for insects, inspecting
with special care crevices in the bark of trees.
The yellowhead is a relative of the diverse, mainly Australian group of songbirds known
as thornbills.
It is a sociable bird, travelling in flocks more or less throughout the year.
Feeding pairs drop out of the group, nest, then rejoin some time later.
Though not especially rare, it is local and patchy in distribution, and its treetop habits
can make it sometimes very difficult to find and watch.
Very occasionally it descends to ground to feed in the litter, but for the most part
it is most at home up here in the canopy.
Being actively in the foliage, it inspects every leaf with care, peering from every angle
for grubs, caterpillars, small spiders and the like.
It also searches crevices in bark and rakes around in the accumulated litter caught in
the crotches of limbs and similar places.
Occasionally it eats fruit.
Adult males have especially bright, clear yellow heads, but females and immatures differ
little except in being duller.
The yellow head is restricted to the South Island, especially in the mixed podocarp forests
of the middle to lower slopes of the Western Mountains.
But in the North Island its place is taken by the closely related white head.
The two birds are very similar in general appearance and behaviour, the obvious difference
between white and yellow head aside, and their relationship remains enigmatic.
They are so closely related that many researchers have regarded them merely as populations of
a single species that happens to be white headed in the North Island, yellow headed
in the South Island.
Nevertheless there are some intriguing differences in some of the details of their respected
life histories.
White heads for example generally build conventional nests high in the canopy foliage, but yellow
heads almost invariably site their carefully constructed nests in cavities in tree trunks.
Probably the winning entrant in any competition to establish the most nondescript bird in
New Zealand, the grey warbler's very lack of any conspicuous features is perhaps its
best identifying feature, especially in combination with its small size, about 11 centimetres.
Common and widespread, the grey warbler inhabits woodland and forested country of all kinds,
generally foraging alone or in pairs in the tree tops.
Most constantly active, it's often very difficult to observe.
There is negligible variation in plumage in regard to sex, age or season.
A glimpse of the bird may be exasperatingly difficult to obtain, but its light rambling
melodic song is one of the conspicuous and evocative features of the New Zealand bush,
especially in springtime.
A close relative of the rock wren, the rifleman is much more common and widespread.
In the virgin beach forests of the south west, it's sometimes the commonest native bird,
but it also occurs in lowland forests and even certain kinds of exotic woodlands such
as pine plantations throughout all three of the main islands of New Zealand.
A tiny, tailless, almost frantically active bird, it seems never still even momentarily.
Much of its time is spent searching the bark of trunks and branches for minute insects,
working its way from the ground up, but it also fossics freely in the moss that covers
almost everything in the beach forests.
It seldom flies any significant distance.
Males and females look very different.
Among other obvious differences, males have bright green backs, whereas females are brown
and striped, but there is no seasonal variation in plumage.
It almost constantly flits its wings in its ceaseless fidgeting, but it also frequently
holds them outstretched as though to display the pale band along the centre of each wing.
The rifleman nests in cavities or holes in trees, and it can sometimes be induced to
accept an artificial nesting box, especially in a woodland setting.
Both parents are kept busy satisfying the voracious appetites of the four or five chicks
that constitute the usual brood.
The rich calls of this bird, the bellbird, are perhaps the most distinctive of the bird
sounds of New Zealand forests.
The rambling and extraordinarily varied song is usually uttered with feathers fluffed and
neck outstretched.
Both sexes sing.
As a family, the honey eaters are mainly an Australian and New Guinea group, but New Zealand
has several species of its own, all endemic.
The bellbird, the tui and the stitchbird.
All feed largely on nectar and fruit, supplemented with insects.
The bird itself is perhaps less impressive in appearance.
An ordinary sort of shape of unremarkable size, its plumage a rather plain, if somewhat
unusual shade of dark green.
Males and females, young and old, and winter and summer birds, are all more or less similar
in appearance, though at close range the males show a bluish gloss on the head, and the females
a narrow white line extending backwards from the gape.
By far the rarest of these, the stitchbird has all but vanished.
It survives today only on Little Barrier Island.
It relies heavily on nectar in its diet, but it also feeds on tiny insects.
Unlike most New Zealand birds, the female differs substantially from the male in plumage.
Males are readily distinguished by their yellow-bordered black breasts and the fleck of white above
and behind the eye.
Females are dull grey-brown and narrowly streaked.
Active and restless birds, stitchbirds frequently cock their tails, a rather unusual habit
in honey eaters.
They remain common within their severely restricted distribution, and they are not particularly
difficult to observe.
In poor light or at any distance, the plumage of the tui appears plain black, but close
at hand in good light it's revealed as strongly glossed, shimmering with intense metallic
violet, green and blue.
The sexes differ only in that the female is slightly smaller.
One of their most distinctive characteristics is the unusually shaped tuft of white feathers
on the throat.
Common in both sexes, and even in youngsters like this one.
Tuis are reasonably common almost throughout New Zealand.
Unlike most other New Zealand native bushbirds, tuis frequently fly high from one patch of
forest to another, and are not at all retiring or difficult to observe.
They come readily to backyard feeding stations.
To the average visiting birdwatcher, the notable thing about the tui is likely to be the extraordinary
difficulty encountered in distinguishing its song from those of the bellbird.
There are differences, but these are sufficiently subtle that only the resident birdwatcher
has any reasonable opportunity of learning to tell one from the other, especially since
the calls of both birds vary greatly and independently from one region to another within New Zealand.
Tuis also frequently mimic bellbirds.
Their diet includes a wide range of fruits, insects and the like, but true to their family
name, they're also strongly attracted to nectar, and are among the most conspicuous visitors
to flowering trees.
Since common on all the main New Zealand islands, the Saddleback is now confined to a few tiny
islands off the coast of Stewart Island in the south, and a few similarly small islands
off the North Island.
One of the three known members of the endemic New Zealand family, Kaleiadi, the Saddleback
ranges the forest from the canopy to the forest floor, searching for insects and fruit.
It has an unusual arrangement of the muscles and bony structure of the jaw, which allows
it considerable power and versatility in levering bark from trees, splitting dead branches,
and digging in rotted logs for wood-boring beetle grubs and similar prey.
It also eats fruit.
Often extremely noisy in its fossicking in bark and litter, it frequently attracts fan
tails, which flutter nearby, picking up small flying insects disturbed by the larger birds
of prey.
The Kokako is another member of the Kaleiadi, and is very nearly flightless.
Like the Saddleback, it is a bird of dense forests, but it feeds largely on the ground.
Once common on all three main New Zealand islands, it's now virtually extinct in the
South Island, but several apparently healthy populations survive in a few extensive forests
on the North Island, especially in the Puketi forest and elsewhere in the Rotorua and Taranaki
region.
The sexes are similar.
A common family name for the group is New Zealand Wattlebird, because of the striking
wattles, bright blue in the case of the Kokako, at the base of the bill.
The Kokako has an almost exclusively vegetarian diet, and is therefore dependent on old, rich
forests with an abundance of different kinds of plants coming into season, species by species
throughout the year.
It feeds very much like a parrot, holding a food item in one foot as it balances on
the other, and disassembles a fruit or seed with its bill.
The only other member of the Kaleidi was the Huia, which became extinct somewhere around
1910.
This extraordinary bird was almost unique among the world's birds, in that the bill
of the male differed strongly in size and shape from that of the female.
This magnificent and absolutely unmistakable pigeon, the New Zealand Pigeon, is common
almost throughout New Zealand.
Reaching greatest densities in mature podocarp forest, it has nevertheless shown considerable
flexibility in its habitat requirements, and occurs even in exotic plantations, and in
some areas in urban parks and gardens.
Last century it came under considerable pressure from habitat destruction and uncontrolled
hunting for food and sport, but since being given complete protection in 1921, its numbers
have grown vigorously.
New Zealand has no other native pigeons, and no introduced ones, except for turtle doves
and the ordinary street pigeon, so identification is not a problem.
The sexes are nearly identical in appearance.
The endemic New Zealand falcon is uncommon, rather locally distributed and probably steadily
declining in number.
Nevertheless, it's not particularly difficult to find in suitably remote or thinly populated
regions, especially in forested hill country such as the Nelson Lakes, or in arid open
country such as the Mackenzie District.
The only other falcon in New Zealand is the Nanking kestrel, which is substantially smaller,
bright rufous above, and which habitually hovers, a thing that the New Zealand falcon
almost never does.
Usually solitary, this striking falcon is territorial and sedentary, feeding mainly
on other birds captured in flight.
Fals are larger than males, but the sexes are otherwise similar in appearance.
Another nondescript small passerine native only to New Zealand is just as difficult to
glimpse, but lives for the most part in entirely different habitat.
Nondescript New Zealand passerine endemics are birds of forest and woodland, but there
is one conspicuous exception.
The aptly named fern bird favours open, swampy country with a dense growth of reeds, sedges,
ferns, or similar vegetation of an almost impenetrable nature.
Though not especially rare in its favourite haunts, it is strongly local and patchy in
distribution, and often very difficult to locate.
Most of the best places to find it are in the south east of the South Island, especially
here and there along the coast from about Dunedin to Invercargill.
It's very secretive, but inquisitive and quite tame, and can usually be coaxed into allowing
the observer at least a brief glimpse of it by mimicking its abrupt metallic calls.
There is little or no plumage variation by age, sex or season, and it's best identified
by its heavily streaked underparts, rufous tinged crown and characteristically long ragged
tail.
It needs to be identified with care, for there is some risk on a brief or obstructed glimpse
of confusing it with the equally nondescript introduced dunnock or hedge sparrow.
New Zealand's national symbol, the kiwi, in fact consists of a cluster of three closely
related and very similar species.
The brown kiwi, the little spotted kiwi, and the greater spotted kiwi.
Distant relatives of the ostrich and emu, they are all flightless ground dwelling birds,
standing at most about 30 centimetres high.
Of the three, the brown kiwi is by far the most widespread, being reasonably common on
all the three main islands, especially in forested areas.
All are strongly nocturnal and only occasionally seen abroad by day.
Although difficult to observe, the kiwi's characteristic calls are a prominent feature
of the night time forests.
In some areas, tourist parties are organised to view feeding kiwis with the aid of powerful
torches.
Identification seldom presents any difficulty.
Any kiwi glimpsed almost anywhere in New Zealand is wildly unlikely to be anything but a brown
kiwi, since the other two species appear to be extremely restricted in their distribution.
The weka is now rare throughout much of New Zealand, where it was formerly common.
But it remains abundant on numerous small offshore islands, as well as on Stewart Island
and somewhat more locally, in parts of fjordland.
It inhabits most kinds of wooded country, or where there is an abundance of undergrowth
or weeds to give it cover.
Where it remains common, it is not at all difficult to observe.
The simplest method is to simply sit down in the bush and open a packet of sandwiches,
whereupon several will almost certainly emerge to beg for crumbs.
It is flightless, but nevertheless wanders considerable distances in its foraging.
One marked bird was transported from Gisborne to Hawke's Bay, and subsequently turned up
at Gisborne again, having walked the 130 kilometres home.
The plumage colour is extremely variable, ranging from quite strongly rufous, through
various shades of brown, to buff and greyish.
Most of this variation is geographical, and there's little to distinguish males from females,
except that the male is usually somewhat larger than his mate.
One of the most critically endangered of all New Zealand's endemic birds, the takahe, is
a turkey-sized rail that closely resembles a giant version of the common pukeko, or purple
swamp hen, common in wetlands throughout Australia and New Zealand.
During the 19th century it was known by only four specimens.
Then, none at all through the first few decades of the 20th century, and it was widely believed
extinct.
But in 1948 it was dramatically rediscovered, when a population of perhaps 200 pairs was
located in the high, remote valleys of the Murchison Range, just west of Lake Te Anau,
in fiordland.
Sub-fossil remains indicate that at least until the time of the coming of the mauri,
it was probably common almost throughout New Zealand, and its survival in the Tussuk valleys
of fiordland remains something of an enigma.
It seems unlikely that this represents optimum habitat for the bird.
Hampering conservation efforts, the takahe has a low reproductive rate.
The birds do not breed until at least three years of age, and usually older.
There's only one brood per year, and usually only two eggs are laid, from which, almost
invariably, only one chick ultimately survives to fledging.
That conservation strategy is founded on this almost constant pattern.
Since two eggs are laid, but only one survives, the superfluous egg is now taken to a captive
breeding establishment near Te Anau, and placed in an incubator to be artificially raised.
The chick is carefully rehabilitated before ultimately being released in the wild.
Along with the kakapou, the takahe has become something of a symbol of the desperately precarious
status of some of New Zealand's most fascinating and unusual birds.
About a dozen species have become entirely extinct since the turn of the century, and
about a dozen more are now entirely restricted to tiny offshore islands or island groups.
They may not become carbonated, but are a source of healing and health.