Kiwi

The North Island brown kiwi is one of New Zealand’s most loved birds, and it is famous for a very special reason: it cannot fly. Instead of soaring through the sky, this round, brown, fluffy bird trots about on the forest floor. Its feathers look soft and spiky, a little like shaggy fur, which helps it blend into the shadows of the trees.

Kiwi are busiest at night, when most other animals are asleep. In the dark they snuffle along the ground looking for food, poking their long bills into the soft soil. They eat mostly tiny creatures such as worms and spiders, which make up about 85 to 95 percent of everything they eat. Because the forest is so dark, kiwi rely on senses other than sight to find their supper.

If you ever saw a kiwi family, you might notice that the mother is a little bigger than the father. In North Island brown kiwi, the females grow larger than the males. They make their homes in the leafy lowland and coastal forests of the northern two-thirds of the North Island, tucking themselves away in cosy burrows during the day.

Sadly, the North Island brown kiwi is vulnerable, which means it needs our care. Numbers have been falling, from around 35,000 birds in the year 2000 to about 20,000 by 2006. The biggest challenge comes from introduced animals like dogs, cats and stoats, and from the loss of native forest.

The good news is that lots of people in New Zealand love kiwi and are working hard to help them. In places where these visiting predators are kept under control, many more kiwi chicks grow up safely. With this careful protection, the gentle night-time kiwi can keep snuffling through its forest home for a very long time to come.