Habits Of The Kiwi: Father Does All The Work Of Hatching

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 13, 16 January 1948, Page 3

Habits Of The Kiwi: Father Does All The Work Of Hatching

“As a visitor to this country, it came to me as a surprise to find how little is known by New Zea-

landers about their national bird, the kiwi. I have talked with people who did not even know whether the bird was as big as a chicken or an ostrich. But this past winter, when staying at Napier, I had the good fortune to meet Mr F. D. Robson, Curator of the Acclimatisation Farm at Greenmeadows, and, knowing of my interest in birds and that I would not have another chance of seeing kiwis, he made an exception to his s'trict rule against visitors and alowed me to pay several visits to the birds which, by special dispensation, he is permitted to keep in captivity. He has at present two adult birds, one male and one female,' and two young ones which he has hatched an reared,” said Mr Robert Gibbings in a recent broadcast.

“Kiwis are nocturnal birds, so during the daytime we did little more than peep at them asleep, but on a moonlight night we could see as well as hear them running about, with heavily loping strides, their long beaks almost touching the ground.

“The male has been’ in captivity for 15 years,” said Mr Robson. “He was about five years old when I got him, and I reckon he is about 20 years old now. The female has been with me eight and a half years. She was brought to me hurt when she was about two months old, but I patched her up and she soon recovered. She laid her first egg when she was four years and nine months old. But she wasn’t full grown then: she grew quite a bit after that. Kiwis take betweeil five and six years to mature. I’ve heard it said that they live to 25 years. The female is always larger and a lighter brown colour than the male. Most pictures of both of them show far too much leg: you hardly see the leg at all unless the bird is running.” Speaking of the eyesight of the kiwi, Mr Robson said: “It is very limited, even at night-time when they see best. In the daytime they bang into anything that happens to be in the way. When the male loses sight of his youngster’s he has to put his bill to the ground and follow them by scent.. Even with worms on the ground, the birds have to sniff all round until they find them. But they have a wopderful sense of hearing—they can hear you even before they smell you.

“It was in 1943 that the female laid her first egg. That year she laid four eggs. Often, with birds in the wild state, you will find only one egg in a nest, but that may be because the first egg has hatched and the chick has gone. With an interval of perhaps a month between the laying of eggs, that would be very likely.

“The female does little nest-build-ing; it is the male bird who does almost all the work. As soon as he takes over, a few days after the first egg is laid, he carries bits of straw and other rubbish every time he goes into the nest. In 1943, the female had only a depression in-the ground and a few small sticks for her first egg. She sat on the egg for three days, but on the fourth day the male took charge, and the female did not go into the box again until she laid her next egg, eleven days after the first; and then she only stayed to lay the egg. The male does all the incubation, and the female pays no attention to him at all while he is sitting, except that occasionally she goes to the' box and sniffs.

“It takes 75 days for an egg to hatch, and that’s a mighty long time for one bird to sit. And if the hen lays the second egg a month after the first, as she often does, it means that the male has to sit for over a hundred days before the second egg is hatched. This year she laid a third egg just after the first egg was hatched, so it looks as if the old man will have to put in a hundred and fifty days on the nest. Nonnally he loses about two pounds in weight during the 75 days, and that’s a lot for a bird that weighs under five pounds at other times. How much he will lose this year, with the hatching of the three eggs, it is hard to say. Every night while he is sitting, I give him a good feed which he can eat quickly, and get back on the egg again. But sometimes he doesn’t go .off the nest for food for a week at a time. When he does leave the • nest -he covers the egg right over, and each time he goes back he takes more straw and twigs until the nest gets quite big; later on he lines it with feathers from his breast. He gets very savage if anyone disturbs him when he is on the nest—sometimes he will hiss and snarl like a cat, and the nearer the time gets to the hatching the more savage he becomes.”