Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE KIWIS, OR WINGLESS BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND

Nesting Kiwis

For a nesting site they prefer a hole in a bank or under the roots of a tree, with a single rather small entrance. They may make use of a natural cavity or enlarge it and adapt it to their needs, the female at least having the power and ability to burrow for some distance if occasion demands, as Buller once found to his dismay when several which he had confined in a pen escaped in this manner.

In the dryest corner of the nesting burrow they arrange a slight bed of fern-fronds and leaves whereon they deposit one or perhaps sometimes two immense eggs, which seem quite out of proportion to the size of the bird. Certain New Zealand authorities state that it is not uncommon to find a young bird a week old and a fresh egg in the same nest of the Roa. Thus the egg of the North Island Kiwi (Apteryx australis mantelli) is sometimes five and three tenths inches long by three and three tenths inches broad, while the bird itself is only about twenty-six inches in length; the egg of Haast's Kiwi (A. haasti) is said to be even larger.

The eggs of the first-mentioned species weigh usually between twelve and fifteen ounces, and exceptionally as much as eighteen ounces. In color the eggs are pure white or slightly greenish gray, but soon become much nest-soiled.”

The shell is very thin, the grain rather fine and totally different from that of all other struthious birds, more resembling that of the eggs of Rallida (Rails) or of Otis (Bustard).”The male appears to take entire charge of incubating the egg (or eggs), and although the female is often found in the same hole, she has not been observed sitting on the eggs. The period of incubation is unknown, but is thought to be about six weeks, and at the close of his duties the male presents a sorry appearance, being poor in flesh and quite stupid, while the female is wide awake and full of fight, a reversion of the conditions prevailing before the egg was laid. The young are quite helpless when hatched, and are unable to stand up, but as soon as they acquire sufficient strength they accompany their parents.

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