A daylight brawl between two kiwi spilt into a Bay of Islands garden last week.
Karin Matthews, who lives just west of Kerikeri, was sitting at her kitchen bench at around 7.30am on Friday when she heard some “strange noises” coming from outside.
She’d heard the noises before and knew it was kiwi, as the birds were a familiar sight in the area, “but usually it’s at night time”.
“I went out onto our deck, and my first thought was, ‘Oh, what are these kiwis doing?’ They’re in my garden, squashing my flowers.
“Then I thought, hang on a minute. This is a very unusual time to have them out and about. So I grabbed my phone and thought, ‘Oh, I’ll get a wee video of them’.”
Matthews’ video showed the two birds running around the garden, scratching, kicking, and smashing into each other.
“I was just laughing, really. It just looked so comical,” she said.
“They just looked like a couple of people having a bit of a fight with their hands tied behind their backs. It just was very entertaining.”
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She said the birds often frequented her garden, but it was rare to see them out in the open during the day.
“There were a couple of occasions where we happened to see kiwi during the daytime. They weren’t actually out and about as such, but lifting up a kayak to put it into the river, there was one having a wee sleep under there.
“Another time when we were lifting a dinghy onto a trailer, we lifted it up, and it was another kiwi.”
Despite the brawls, Matthews said seeing kiwi so often was “fantastic”.
“We’re very lucky,” she said.
Save the Kiwi Northland regional coordinator Emma Craig told 1News it was “pretty exceptional” to see two kiwi fighting during the day.
While she couldn’t determine the gender of the two birds featured in the video, Craig assumed they were two males.
“They’re not quite into their breeding season, so it’s probably more likely to be over food resources.”
Craig said eastern Northland was experiencing drier conditions than usual, making the ground hard.
“It’s really difficult for kiwi to probe into the ground to find food, so it means that if they’re not able to feed enough during the night because, of course, they are nocturnal animals, then they’re gonna have to try to feed during the day as well.
“I suspect that’s probably what’s happened with these two.”
Despite looking cute and gentle, Craig said kiwi often fight, using their powerful legs to deliver blows.
“They’ve got marrow in their bones rather than air like other birds because they don’t need to fly, so they can have really big, heavy legs.
“When people think about kiwis fighting, they often picture them sword fighting with their bills. But kiwis have really delicate bills that they want to protect. So there’s no way they’d be trying to stab at each other with them.
“Those feet can be lethal, and people like myself who work with kiwi will have multiple scars to prove it.”
Craig said that as kiwi explored new spots to find food, it was important to stay vigilant.
“It’s good to keep in mind that they could be encountering dogs as they leave their usual spots. So it’s really important for dog owners to keep their dogs under control and keep those kiwis protected.”