Iconic - a photo on Flickriver

Iconic

            A wild and windy day to remember ambling around Ulva Island, drinking in the native wildlife. It was unreal how little the wildlife seemed to care about you so long as you weren’t too noisey and took your time. Stumbling across this Kiwi was a bit of a stroke of luck with it blending in almost perfectly with the underbrush. In fact, two trees knocking together in the high winds turned our attention to an unspectacular section to the side of the path and this little fella was poking around right there. Talk about the perfect storm!

I didn’t realise until I went to Stewart Island that our native Kiwi actually has five different subspecies. The Tokoeka, like this one, has somewhat of a stronghold on Stewart Island with around 15,000 individuals. Kiwis are usually nocturnal, but some Stewart Island birds and chicks forage by day which made this interaction with our national icon that much more special. 

Their small eyes apparently provide decent night vision but their sense of smell is extremely well-developed with both nostrils and sensory pits located towards the tip of their long beak to help them locate prey. They hunt by literally poking around with their long beak, plunging it into the ground at a fairly rapid rate, snuffling like a hedgehog the whole time. I don’t know exactly what I expected but I found this pretty amusing!

Taken on: April 3, 2021

Tags:

Stewart Island

Southland

Ulva Island

Sony A7iii

Sony

Wildlife

Bird

Kiwi

Tokoeka

South Island Brown Kiwi

Native

Rakiura

Rakiura National Park « less

Sets appears in: • Wildlife

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Camera: Sony ILCE-7M3, f/3.5, 1/320 sec, 134mm, ISO 10000 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Sony ILCE-7M3
Lens:	FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS
Aperture:	f/3.5
Exposure Time:	0.003 sec (1/320)
Focal Length:	134mm
ISO:	10000
Exposure Bias:	-0.3 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 10.3 (Macintosh)
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