We never spotted a kiwi up at Arthur's Pass (where keas rule the roost), despite the sign. Finding the National Bird proved to be quite hard, although we heard them at night on a reserve on the east coast of Northland, and in the morning we discovered a hole in the grass which it was easy to believe could have been dug by a kiwi's long beak. Then again, maybe it was just an old tent peg hole. We did however see one in the kiwi-house at one of the Rotorua geysers - does that count for the tick?
Yikes! What's that? There were no yellow signs on the road warning us about this big fellow in Te Anau. He's a takahe, a sort of local icon in the form of a large blue chicken. The takahe was thought to be extinct until 1948 when Geoffrey Orbell rediscovered a colony in the Murchison Mountains near Te Anau. Unfortunately, spotting a takahe (even in captivity) proved as elusive for us as stumbling across a Giant Moa or Haast Eagle. Those two really are extinct. Maybe.
This is the silouette of a pukeko, otherwise known as the Purple Swamphen. We saw plenty of these all over the place, though strangely there were none on this particular section of road.
A weta is a large scary cricket. A weka (aka woodhen) is a dull brown, flightless bird like a small kiwi with a tail. Both are particularly annoying when they get caught up in your hair. We saw quite a few wekas near Cape Foulwind. This blustery place lived up to its name, providing rain as well as low cloud. The wekas proved to be an interesting diversion, counterbalancing the 'fowl' weather!
Yes, you really do have to slow down to avoid the Little Blue Penguins in Oamaru, north of Dunedin. Well, at night anyway, when they come ashore in rafts and waddle up the beach to their nest holes. We saw 256 of the comical little chaps. The Blue Penguin is not endemic to NZ - it's also found on the south coast of Australia, where it's known as the Fairy Penguin. These days however, the macho and politically-correct Australians prefer to avoid calling them "Fairies" and have switched to "Little Penguin". I'm not sure if the same fate has befallen the Fairy Tern. It would be a shame.
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