A Ngungurian real story
Kia ora Silvia, I thought you might like to share this story with your TLC readers. I live right on the edge of the village near Pipis, and last week I could hear a male kiwi calling repeatedly late at night. It is typical to hear him call once nightly from my place, but repeatedly was unusual. After a few minutes I heard a female calling also. It is really uncommon for me to hear the female as they call less frequently, and their calls don’t travel as far. This piqued my interested enough that I went outside on the deck to hear better, and then everything really started to kick off!
I could hear a second male calling, and then two kiwi making a huge racket running through the bushes not far from the house. The male would start trying to call, but a few moments in I could hear what sounded very much like the female shoulder-barging him. There was a heap of enthusiastic growling going on (yes, kiwi growl, and also snap their bills to show aggression), chasing, and crashing through the undergrowth for quite a few minutes.
It didn’t take long to piece together what I think was going on. Kiwi generally nest more than once a season, and the first nests will have finished recently. The chicks are independent within a few weeks of hatching, so it leaves the parents to get on with round two of nesting for the year. I would guess that the (likely already paired up) female had a visiting male come to see if she wanted to consider swapping mates and nesting with him. From her response, I think it was a hard no! The males are generally around 2 kg in weight, and the females can be double this, so I think she was using her size advantage to let him know not to bother asking again. Male kiwi will fight each other quite savagely if they are having territorial disputes, and when it comes to matters of the heart this females clearly wasn’t shy about expressing her opinions.
from "Save the Kiwi"
Kiwi dads sit on the eggs for close to 3 months before they hatch, so any nests that are laid now won’t have chicks until around Waitangi Day, but it’s exciting to think that the little kiwi chicks from the first nests are potentially right on the edge of the village at the moment. The chicks don’t call so it’s harder to know they are around, but their miniature footprints can sometimes be seen along the edges of muddy puddles. It’s a good reminder to keep cats at home, and to keep them inside at night. The chicks are completely vulnerable once they leave the nests, and they have no defense against cats.
In the late 1990’s I was living very close to where I live now, right on the edge of the village in the same little valley. The potential for kiwi to be so close to the village wasn’t even on my radar then, and it is incredible to think that in one generation they are now right here amongst us. What a privilege to be the benefactors of those with the vision to start the mahi all those years ago.
I regularly work with communities who have had kiwi missing from their nightly soundscape for decades, and I see the boundless effort they need to invest to try to get kiwi returned. They really look to communities like ours, and strive to be at the point that we are one day. We simply wouldn’t be here without responsible dog ownership. So a big thank you also to all the dog owners who ensure their canine companions are safely contained in a run or inside at night, who keep their dogs under control (even on their own properties, because kiwi don’t see human boundary lines), and who walk their dogs on a lead anywhere kiwi might be. It’s so valuable to have both well taken care of dogs, and a thriving kiwi population.
by Emma
Listen to kiwi calls here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__4rDoA0mPU
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