By Sorrel Hoskin

Kiwi country by daylight - backblocks Taranaki overlooked by the mountains of the Central Plateau. Image: Puke Ariki. 

It's nearly midnight, a golden orbed moon is creeping silently above the treetops, silhouetting forest giants, knarled rimu and pukatea, on hillsides blanketed in bush. Towering hills open to reveal a wedge of sky pocked with stars. A gravel road snakes its way uphill in the silvery starlight, a platform for parading possums beckoned out by the full moon. This is backblocks Taranaki, out in the "never never", "past the black stump" a rough and rugged land that has beaten most settlers who dared attempt to scrape a living from the landscape.

We're here to collect kiwi eggs. But first we must wait. "Lifting" eggs is a delicate procedure that involves sitting around for 95 per cent of the time, says kiwi catcher Sid Marsh. Male North Island brown kiwi TaKT (reputedly nicknamed after the Taranaki Kiwi Trust) is sitting on a clutch of eggs, snuggled in a burrow on the hillside, and we have to wait for him to wander off for a snack before we move in. He's been sitting on the eggs for just over two months, only leaving to forage for a few hours every evening. But, Sid warns, there's no guarantee he will leave tonight. Our wait may be in vain.

Saving the kiwi

This is Operation Nest Egg in action - part of Taranaki Kiwi Trust's multi-pronged approach to kiwi conservation in Taranaki.  The Trust is working with the Department of Conservation to increase the population of 60-80 adult North Island Brown kiwi in Egmont National Park. It's a doubled edged operation - pest trapping and introducing chicks from areas where there's no pest control. If tonight's mission is successful the eggs will be taken to Rotorua 's Kiwi Encounter at Rainbow Springs and the resulting kiwi chicks will be released into the safer environs of the park.

Early in 2005 DOC rangers pinpointed areas on the map where they had heard kiwi calling. The night-time effort resulted in several kiwi being caught by Sid, calling them in on a shepherds whistle, the shrill "creee creeee" a challenge to the curious kiwi males who came searching, were caught in a hand net and small transmitters strapped to their legs.

A stay home dad

The steady blip blip of the radio receiver confirms that TaKT is staying put. Incubation of the egg is usually done by male kiwi, says Sid. After the arduous task of laying an egg weighing in at 20 per cent of her body weight the female takes a break - heading off to build up her reserves. Natural incubation of eggs can take up to 82 days. It's best to leave the eggs on the nest as long as possible before removing them to an artificial incubator, says Sid. This gives the little kiwi a greater chance of survival.

The kiwi hunter has been keeping an eye on this father and his nest for some weeks now, waiting for just the right time to sneak in and delicately remove the eggs. Sid believes in low impact monitoring - the less stress to the birds the better their chance of survival.

Earlier in the evening we had checked out another nest - from a distance. Male kiwi Hendry (after past DOC area manager Rex Hendry) was sitting on a clutch of eggs soon to be collected by Sid. We carefully marked a trail down the hillside through the bush - making an easy exit for the kiwi hunter once he had done his collecting. 

Socks and hotwater bottles

It's early morning before the monotonous blip of the receiver wavers, TaKT is on the move. We wait a while to ensure he's well out of range before grabbing our gear: a portable "incubator" torches, a hand net and a small saw - just in case the nest is hard to access.

The clutch of eggs nestled in TaKT's burrow. Image: Puke Ariki.

Clambering through long grass, bracken, blackberry and brush we move as quietly as possible. Surprisingly the nest is not tucked away in the bush - it's on the fringe, a sizeable hole in a bank, an entrance hidden by long grass. Inside two eggs are nestled among dry grass and kiwi feathers.

The eggs are smooth and off-white in colour. They each fit snugly into the palm of my hand. Sid "candles" the eggs - shining a torch light around the shell revealing a large mass inside each - a kiwi chick about 65 days old in one, 55 days old in another. The eggs are labelled and dated before being edged carefully into a woolly sock and placed in a towel-filled chilly-bin atop warm hot-water bottles - a successful makeshift incubator that keeps the eggs around 35C for the trip inland to Rotorua.

An unbirdlike bird

Kiwi are unusual because they alone of all bird species have a blood temperature close to humans, says Sid. Other birds have temperatures ranging up to 42C. The kiwi hunter rattles off a list of other weird and wonderful characteristics that has seen the kiwi called an "honorary mammal." It is a very unbird like bird. "It's skin is as tough as shoe-leather, its feathers are like hair, its bones are heavy, it has fantastic hearing, a great sense of smell and its wings end in a cat-like claw."

Sid Marsh prepares to put an egg in the "incubator" ready for it's trip to Kiwi Encounter in Rotorua. Image: Puke Ariki.

It's obvious he's passionate about helping save New Zealand's iconic bird - but Sid has been at the sharp end of recovery programmes for many of New Zealand's endangered birds - kokako, kakapo, kaka and blue duck. He prefers the hands on work - getting involved at the ground roots where positive results can be physically seen. The kiwi hunter, author and artist is passionate about conservation full stop.

A promising start

The eggs safely stored we edge our way down the hillside, strap the incubator into a seatbelt in the car and head off to civilisation. Sid will take the eggs to Kiwi Encounter in Rotorua - keeping an eye on the temperature gauge to ensure they remain above 25C.  There they will be put into incubators and once hatched (it can take a kiwi chick up to six days to break out of its shell) they will be placed in the nursery. Once they reach 400gm the chicks are released into an outdoor enclosure where they grow until they are 1.2kg when they will travel back to Taranaki and be released into the pest free area of Egmont National Park.

This past season has been a busy one for Kiwi Encounter - they have had an astounding 92.6 per cent hatch rate - raising 88 chicks to be released around the North Island. In the wild a hatch rate of just 50 per cent is common. 

But it's not cheap - Kiwi Encounter rely on visitor entry fees to raise the majority of the $2,500 needed to rear a chick from egg to the stage of release. Only $200 of this is supplied by the Department of Conservation for quarantine. 

A chick raised artificially has about a 40 per cent chance of survival to adulthood once it's released back into the wild - compare that with the wild hatched chicks where just five per cent make it that far. Through the programme the Taranaki Kiwi Trust and DOC have released five kiwi into the park already with a further nine on the way - positive action that may halt the kiwis decline into extinction.