Kiwi burrow cam

Dive into the underground world of a kiwi burrow (courtesy of a recent health check on one of our monitored birds — a male named Te Ua Haumene).
🔑🟤🩺🤿

Bonus points if you pick up the cameo appearance from the cave wētā, waving off the invading paparazzi at ~25sec.

📹🤳The footage was taken as part of our annual transmitter change (a requirement of our DOC permit). The pale blue object beneath Te Ua Haumene is the transmitter.

Kiwi tūrua (burrows) can be metres deep; taking advantage of natural cavities (eg fallen trees or rotted roots) or self-excavated (#kiwidiy).

Rawiri (Kaimanaaki Kiwi, CK):
“Sometimes it’s easier to take a video to work out where the bird is so that you can make a plan on how to extract it. Someone holding a phone in their hands can be preferable to a fragile and expensive burrow cam.”

It’s pretty sweet to reflect that these niches in the Pōneke hills are being reoccupied and renovated by tenants after an absence of generations.