I had several left over pictures of wildlife of New Zealand that was worth sharing in a pictorial. So did we ever encounter the elusive nocturnal Kiwi bird? Well, yes and no. In Fox Glacier there was a Glow Worm trail near our hotel that we took one very dark night to view the Glow Worms. They were awesome, but not having a tripod and with the light conditions being so low, it was a futile effort to take a picture of them (see below). While we were admiring the hundreds of Glow Worms festooning the forest, we heard an odd chirping from the forest floor. The dark forest made us near blind to the German couple standing next to us as she leaned over to her husband and whispered, “Kiwi!” We weren’t absolutely sure it was a Kiwi until we found some stuffed Kiwis at the airport that made the same sound that we heard that night. So we HEARD a Kiwi, but never saw it!
As usual, leave your comments and feedback below. Kia ora!
2 replies on “Fauna of New Zealand”
How did you capture the relatively close shots of the birds? Zoom lens? Or were the birds tolerant of humans, possibly seeing them as sources of free-food handouts?
A little of both. I have a small zoom lens on my portable digital camera I use for hikes, but that really doesn’t make a huge difference. Some of the birds were curious and got a little closer. And then I cheated by cropping and zooming digitally in some cases!