Kiwi's

Ever since we have arrived in New Zealand we have been talking about kiwi birds with the kids. They can spot them anywhere...on shirts, signs, posters, etc. So, when we found out that there is a conservatory in Queenstown that held real kiwi birds we thought we had better go.

When we went to the conservatory, we first listened to a talk on some of the birds that they have there. Kiwi birds are semi-nocturnal, secretive birds so they were not able to show us a live one in the show but we got to see one afterward. Kiwis have the shortest beaks out of any bird! Anyone who has seen a kiwi may find that hard to believe because they are super long. But, when they measure a birds beak they measure from nostril to tip. Kiwis being the only bird to have their nostrils at the end of their beak don't really measure up.

Kiwi's are fairly small birds, weighing between 3 and 9 pounds. One other interesting thing we found out about Kiwis is that Kiwi eggs are proportionately larger compared to the size of the adult female than the eggs of any other bird. An egg may reach one-quarter of its mother’s weight. After the first egg is laid, the male takes over incubation and nest maintenance. Wow! They showed us an x-ray of a pregnant Kiwi. It was pretty cool!

After we saw the Kiwi birds we were able to walk around the conservatory with headphones for a self-guided tour of birds, ducks and some historical displays of the area. It was cute to see the kids starring into the cages, listening to their headsets. Bella enjoyed following the numbers and listening but Charlie thought it was more fun throwing rocks into the water. We didn't see much of the famous Kiwi birds as their area was dimly lit and they were hard to spot. Charlie talks about Kiwi birds and so we were hoping to see more of them.