Kiwi Bird Call

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The people of New Zealand are often referred to as Kiwis in a joking fashion (similar to how the Australians refer to the British as Poms; a humorous nickname). This derives, not from the tangy fruit that many people take pleasure in consuming, but in the bird that is native to the islands of New Zealand. The Kiwi is a very distinctive creature; one of the few flightless birds it has suffered terribly from the effects of ground predators introduced by colonizers and has become much rarer, although they now have a protected status in many of the National Parks across the country. The deforestation process has also contributed to their demise in that it destroys their habitat. The bird also has the distinction of laying the largest egg (comparatively speaking to its size) of any other bird in the world.

Unlike many creatures in the animal kingdom, the Kiwi bird is a monogamous bird; living with only one partner throughout the entirety of their lives. This has often been cited as one of the reasons why they have struggled to keep numbers up. They communicate using a system of calls to one another. The call is very different to the birds we are used to, with a ‘cree-cree-cree’ sound. This call can be heard throughout the woodlands of New Zealand in the evenings when all human activity begins to cease in the National Parks. It is an iconic call of one of the most iconic birds in the world.