Winter Learning Journey : Day 3 : Wild Eyes

Day #3

Activity 1: Curious Kiwi, a native New Zealand bird, is your tour guide for today. He is going to take you to visit the Otorohanga Kiwi House and Native Bird Park where many of his aunties and uncles currently live. The bird park is a five hour drive from Dargaville so you hit the road right after breakfast and arrive in Otorohanga at lunch time. As you walk through the birdhouse you learn about the work being done to conserve and protect the native birds of New Zealand. You decide to help out by ‘adopting’ a native animal. Visit the ‘Adopt a Critter page’ on the Otorohanga bird house website to choose one animal to adopt. On your blog, tell us the name of the animal that you chose and   write a little bit about them. What kind of animal are they? What do they eat? Where do they normally live? You can use Google to help you with your research.

Here I have my choices - The Kea , Tui , Brown Kiwi , The Brown Teal ( Pateke ) , The blue duck , ( whio ) , And the NZ falcon

( Karearea) are all native birds to New Zealand. But I have to choose one to adopt and pick..... The Kea . I have now adopted a kea which makes me the owner of one . Though I have found out that this species are endangered .

Something About The Kea : The sexes are similar although the male kea is more larger with a more outward and curving upper mandible . The color of the creature is an olive green with scarlet underwing coverts . The iris is a dark brown with the mandible and the legs are a dark brown to black.It’s size is 46cm . The juveniles crown immediately after fledging . The color of the nape is olive/yellow and the cere and the mandible are a bright orange - yellow .

Kea Habitation : The Kea Inhabit the south island high country and alps

Principle / Threats : Degradation of habitat by fire

• Over-grazing by domestic stock and browsing by feral animals
• Predation at nests by introduced mammals such as stoats.
• Illegal shooting and poisoning
• And Illegal capture and trading in Kea.