KIWI IN KAPITI ISLAND: THE ZEALANDERS NATIVE BIRDS

Preparing the trip to Kapiti Island

Tonyi Tamaki loves nature. Biodiversity is a present for every person who appreciates the value of our planet and works for its conservation and protection.

Today, Tonyi has guided her friend to Kapiti Island where it's possible to enjoy some local animals and flora. Joseph de Ca'th Lon is very interested in studying one of the most amazing native animals: the kiwis.

Before arriving to Kapiti Island, they have visited Mount Wainui and they have taken some photos of Kapiti Island from the coast. Meanwhile they have been waiting for the ferry, Claire Fontaine has prepared her camera to take as photos as she can, especially photos about kiwis, and The Grandma study a new lesson of her First Certificate Language Practice manual (Grammar 14).

More information: Time expressions

Kapiti Island is an island about 5 km off the west coast of the lower North Island of New Zealand. It is 10 kilometres long, running southwest/northeast, and roughly 2 kilometres wide, being more or less rectangular in shape, and has an area of 19.65 km2.

The island is separated from the North Island by the Rauoterangi channel. The highest point on the island is Tuteremoana, 521 m. The seaward west side of the island is particularly rocky and has high cliffs, some hundreds of metres high, that drop straight into the sea.

The cliffs are subject to very strong prevailing westerly winds and the scrubby vegetation that grows there is low and stunted by the harsh environmental conditions. A cross-section of the island would show almost a right-angled triangle, revealing its origins from lying on a fault line, part of the same ridge as the Tararua Range.

Joseph de Ca'th Lon in Mount Wainui

The island's vegetation is dominated by scrub and forest of kohekohe, tawa, and kanuka. Most of the forest is regenerating after years of burn-offs and farming, but some areas of original bush with 30 m trees remain.

Its name has been used since 1989 by the Kapiti Coast District Council, which includes towns such as Paekakariki, Raumati, Paraparaumu and Waikanae. The full Maori name of the island is Te Waewae-Kapiti-o-Tara-raua-ko-Rangitane, which, despite popular misconception, is unrelated to the Maori word Kāpiti, cabbage.

The island was surveyed in 1770 during the first voyage of James Cook. In the 18th and 19th centuries Māori settled on the island. Te Rauparaha formed a base here, and his Ngāti Toa tribe regularly sailed in canoes on raiding journeys up to the Whanganui River and down to Marlborough. In the Battle of Wairo (1824) the Ngāti Toa destroyed a force of 2,000 mainland warriors who had landed at the northern end of Kapiti in an attempt to capture the island.

More information: Kapiti Island

The sea nearby was a nursery for whales, and during whaling times 2,000 people were based on the island. Oil was melted from the blubber and shipped to America for use in machinery before petroleum was used. Although whales can be seen once every year during birthing season, there still are fewer than there used to be.

The conservation potential of the island was seen as early as 1870. It was reserved as a bird sanctuary in 1897 but it was not until 1987 that the Department of Conservation (DOC) took over the administration of the island.

The island is the site of Kapiti Island Nature Reserve and adjoins the Kapiti Marine Reserve. Most of it is in New Zealand Crown ownership.

The Grandma & Claire contemplate Kapiti Island

The island is home to a number of native birds, mostly re-introduced. These include takahe, North Island kōkako, brown teal, stitchbird (hihi), North Island saddleback (tieke), tomtit (miromiro), fantail (piwakawaka), morepork (ruru), weka and North Island robin (toutouwai). 

The brown kiwi and little-spotted kiwi were released on the island between 1890 and 1910, and the island is now the stronghold for the latter species. Rat eradication has led to increases in red-fronted parakeets, North Island robin, bellbirds, and saddlebacks and the island is considered one of New Zealand's most important sites for bird recovery, as well as a major breeding site, for seabirds. In April 2005, the critically endangered short-tailed bat was introduced to the island from a threatened population in the Tararuas, providing them with a separate, safer habitat.

Owing to the proximity of Wellington, there are regular tourist trips to the island, limited to 160 people per day, and it is an especially popular destination for birdwatchers. Having no natural mammalian predators, New Zealand birds are trusting, and a visitor to the island is likely to be rewarded by seeing a number of different species. 

More information: Kiwis for Kiwi

Kiwi or kiwis are flightless birds native to New Zealand, in the genus Apteryx and family Apterygidae. Approximately the size of a domestic chicken, kiwi are by far the smallest living ratites, which also consist of ostriches, emus, rheas, and cassowaries, and lay the largest egg in relation to their body size of any species of bird in the world.

A kiwi bird

DNA sequence comparisons have yielded the surprising conclusion that kiwi are much more closely related to the extinct Malagasy elephant birds than to the moa with which they shared New Zealand.

There are five recognised species, four of which are currently listed as vulnerable, and one of which is near-threatened. All species have been negatively affected by historic deforestation but currently the remaining large areas of their forest habitat are well protected in reserves and national parks. At present, the greatest threat to their survival is predation by invasive mammalian predators. The unique adaptations of kiwi, such as their large eggs, short and stout legs, or using their nostrils at the end of their long beak to detect prey before they ever see it, have helped the bird to become internationally well-known.

The kiwi is an icon of New Zealand, and the association is so strong that the term Kiwi is used internationally as the colloquial demonym for New Zealanders.

More information: Departament of Conservation-Te Papa Atawhai

The Māori language word kiwi is generally accepted to be of imitative origin from the call. However, some linguists derive the word from Proto-Nuclear Polynesian *kiwi, which refers to Numenius tahitiensis, the bristle-thighed curlew, a migratory bird that winters in the tropical Pacific islands. With its long decurved bill and brown body, the curlew resembles the kiwi. So when the first Polynesian settlers arrived, they may have applied the word kiwi to the new-found bird. The genus name Apteryx is derived from Ancient Greek without wing: a-, without or not; pterux, wing.

The name is usually uncapitalised, with the plural either the anglicised kiwis or, consistent with the Māori language, appearing as kiwi without an -s.

A kiwi, symbol of New Zealand

Although it was long presumed that the kiwi was closely related to the other New Zealand ratites, the moa, recent DNA studies have identified its closest relative as the extinct elephant bird of Madagascar, and among extant ratites, the kiwi is more closely related to the emu and the cassowaries than to the moa. Research published in 2013 on an extinct genus, Proapteryx, known from the Miocene deposits of the Saint Bathans Fauna, found that it was smaller and probably capable of flight, supporting the hypothesis that the ancestor of the kiwi reached New Zealand independently from moas, which were already large and flightless by the time kiwi appeared.

Their adaptation to a terrestrial life is extensive: like all the other ratites, ostrich, emu, rhea and cassowary, they have no keel on the sternum to anchor wing muscles. The vestigial wings are so small that they are invisible under the bristly, hair-like, two-branched feathers. While most adult birds have bones with hollow insides to minimise weight and make flight practicable, kiwi have marrow, like mammals and the young of other birds.

More information: WWF

With no constraints on weight due to flight requirements, brown kiwi females carry and lay a single egg that may weigh as much as 450 g. Like most other ratites, they have no uropygial gland, preen gland. Their bill is long, pliable and sensitive to touch, and their eyes have a reduced pecten. Their feathers lack barbules and aftershafts, and they have large vibrissae around the gape. They have 13 flight feathers, no tail and a small pygostyle. Their gizzard is weak and their caecum is long and narrow.

A kiwi protecting its eggs

The eye of the kiwi is the smallest relative to body mass in all avian species resulting in the smallest visual field as well. The eye has small specialisations for a nocturnal lifestyle, but kiwi rely more heavily on their other senses, auditory, olfactory, and somatosensory system. 

The sight of the kiwi is so underdeveloped that blind specimens have been observed in nature, showing how little they rely on sight for survival and foraging. Before the arrival of humans in the 13th century or earlier, New Zealand's only endemic mammals were three species of bat, and the ecological niches that in other parts of the world were filled by creatures as diverse as horses, wolves and mice were taken up by birds and, to a lesser extent, reptiles, insects and gastropods.

More information: Live Science

The kiwi's mostly nocturnal habits may be a result of habitat intrusion by predators, including humans. In areas of New Zealand where introduced predators have been removed, such as sanctuaries, kiwi are often seen in daylight. They prefer subtropical and temperate podocarp and beech forests, but they are being forced to adapt to different habitat, such as sub-alpine scrub, tussock grassland, and the mountains.

Kiwi have a highly developed sense of smell, unusual in a bird, and are the only birds with nostrils at the end of their long beaks. Kiwi eat small invertebrates, seeds, grubs, and many varieties of worms. They also may eat fruit, small crayfish, eels and amphibians. 

Because their nostrils are located at the end of their long beaks, kiwi can locate insects and worms underground using their keen sense of smell, without actually seeing or feeling them. This sense of smell is due to a highly developed olfactory chamber and surrounding regions. It is a common belief that the kiwi relies solely on its sense of smell to catch prey but this has not been scientifically observed.

More information: BuzzFeed

Everyone likes birds. 

What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, 

as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird? 

David Attenborough