Five weeks in a bush

Today, how to hunt North Island Brown kiwis(Apteryx australis mantelii ).
First, the place: Pukaha Mount Bruce, a protected hill which aim is to allow everyone to hear again the concerto of birds which had marked the first european settlers... For this more than 100km of tracks which cross 1000ha of bush,

rainforest, alpine meadows red-pine forestsand beech-forest... To find the animal, be prepared for a weather...New-Zealander : nice day one day, snow the day after, and rain between, fog, because it's funny to changeBut whatever the time of the day, a raimbow covers the forest, which should be full of treasures...Its treasures are the animals which give to this mainland's island a look of ornithologic Noe ark : Tomtit (Petroica macrocephala) kereru (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae) fat wood pigeon, sometines to heavy for the small branches of the canopy kaka (Nestor meridionalis) parrot cousin of the moutain dweller kea tuis (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae) and bellbirds (Anthornis melanura) which songs are so identical that it's sometimes impossible to distinguish one from the other : tui's fault who imitates it's colleague's chimes.

Other treasures, more hidden : mosses, funghiwhich colors are sometimes quite "human"...and, to wrap the all, as a bouquet going out from the florist, ferns, hectares of ferns' leaves : tree-ferns (as kakote -Cyathea smithii- second picture), normal ferns browning in autumn, silver ferns, epiphyte ferns climbing on top of trunks,as these cicadas which moults stay caught to the tree which protected them So, to find the bird, you need either a very good sense of smell or good radiotracking tools
Nevertheless, you won't have to climb in the trees, I'm sorry, but kiwi are flightless birds, as takahe, kakapo or Campbel Island tealIn this case, be prepared to crawl into burrows dug under logs, roots or ferns, catch the feet of the bird, weigh it, touch it, take a nice picture and bring it back to its room.And that's all folks

see you

yvan