Special bird encounters at Pūkaha

When I planned a trip to Pūkaha National Wildlife Centre recently I didn’t expect to have a personal experience with a rare bird!

That bird is Kahurangi the kōkako. She is a captive bird that was hand raised and therefore cannot survive in the wild. She is such an incredible bird and is so well taken care of by the pūkaha team, in particular Tara Swan, her lead carer, who is a photographer and artist! Check out her website here: https://www.swanphotography.co.nz/

I was so lucky that Tara invited me to meet Kahurangi. Kahu was quite shy with me at first but seemed to warm up to me and eventually I got to feed her a pea! This was such a special experience that I won’t be forgetting in a hurry, I was so mesmerised my Kahurangi and her beauty, especially the way her cool grey plumage fades into warm grey, I could have admired her for hours!

Prior to meeting Kahurangi I had walked the lookout track all the way to the top hoping to spot some wild kōkako along the way. I knew I was being optimistic but tried my best anyway, I would stop regularly along the way listening out for any calls or movement that could give away their presence. I didn’t spot any on the way up but on the way down I had a good feeling, I came across one particular spot that was bustling with birdlife. I saw a large bird and got my hopes right up, but it was just a tūī. Then I noticed a larger bird, lifted my camera, and there it was!! I caught a glimpse of an eye and then a blue wattle, my heart was thumping with excitement, and I made sure not to let the bird out of my sight, but as hard as I tried I could not see where it went and I lost it. I was pretty gutted to not get better photos, but I got evidence and it was very exciting to see a wild kōkako nonetheless!

Apart from the kōkako experiences, other highlights of the day were seeing lots of adorable miromiro (tomtits). I always love seeing these sweet little birds, and I even managed one photo I’m super proud of, a photo with both a male and female together!

As well as miromiro there are always lots of titipounamu (rifleman) at Pūkaha, but I decided not to spend too much time taking photos of them, and instead focus on the birds that I see less often. There was one rather special moment where I heard a family of titipounamu alarm calling. They usually do this when there is a bird of prey around and in this case it was a ruru (morepork). I’ve seen titipounamu harassing ruru before, but this time I managed to capture it on camera! Here is the link to watch it.

All in all, Pūkaha is a really great place to visit, especially if you love small forest birds! I am always blown away by the birdlife, it seems to be abundant all throughout the sanctuary. I left that day feeling so happy to have seen and met so many amazing birds, I’m really looking forward to visiting again in spring when there will be young birds all everywhere.