1 post tagged “bird rescue”

hi from the House Of Plague.  the pebbles came back from england last week and summarily developed a fantastic case of bronchitis and/or pneumonia (the doctor wasn't sure), whose most endearing symptom is the racking cough that persists day and night.  and today, 8 days after he arrived home, my lungs are slowly filling with cement.  because we like to share!  yay!

anyway, that's not what this is all about - instead i have a special edition of Random Fauna On The Inkspot for you today, oh yes.  no bugs, no herps, no fur even... today it's feathers!  weeeeeird feathers. 

on a recent weekend road trip to wanganui, roger and i went to visit the local branch of bird rescue, where we had the very rare privilege of meeting a real, live kiwi.  and not just meeting her.  gonzo is a three-year-old female who suffered severe beak damage two years ago, including the loss of the sensory pads at the end of the lower beak that help kiwi sense their insect prey.  (there - i DID sneak bugs in.)  since then she has not fed herself and will never be fit fo release back into the wild.  but she can still be part of the kiwi breeding program, operation nest egg.  her need to be fed by hand several times a day means, however, that she has to be very comfortable around people - essentially a pet.  it may seem a little wrong to let a wild animal get so used to and dependent on people, but if you could see her beady little eyes drift closed, her beak-whiskers quivering with pleasure as she leans into a good scratch on the back of the head, you might decide her life's not so bad.

a kiwi is a pretty unlikely looking animal, a bird evolved to fill an ecological niche normally taken by mammals, in an island country where the only native land mammals are bats.  kiwi feathers are very similar to fur, being long, slender and coarse - more traditional feathers would only get shredded as they trundle through the dense undergrowth.  and the whole coat of feathers is surprisingly springy to the touch.  their bones are solid (gonzo weighed about 2.2 kg), their legs heavy and powerful, and their wings reduced to tiny naked stumps, with a single claw at the tip of each.  the whole demeanor is, in fact, much more reminiscent of a large rodent (say, a guinea pig), than a bird - less frantic hopping and head-swiveling, more sedate observation and whisker-twitching.  and testing of things by biting.

given their odd appearance and behavior, kiwi do perhaps seem like an odd choice for a national icon, and, as a nz comedian recently pointed out, naming a national airline 'kiwi air' (after a flightless animal that likes to dive nose-first into the ground) may not have been the most inspired marketing tactic.  but i have to say, it was a thrill to meet a kiwi - to see the scaly feet and rough feathers up close, to touch the fluffy underdown and watch her drift into a scratch-induced sleeplike trance.  kiwi are extraordinarily endangered in nz, and although there is relatively good awareness of and support for remedying their plight, one does occasionally hear the callous question, 'why save this evolutionary dead-end, when it obviously can't survive on its own anymore?'  well, i hope gonzo (in between raising healthy chicks, hatched from eggs that weigh 25% of her own body weight when they are laid - ouch!!) meets a few of those cynics and changes their minds.