Sydney Porter-Notes on New Zealand Birds



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would be beneficial in lieu of the grubs which they get in the wild

state. The Kea makes one of the most delightful pets that it is possible

to imagine and in my opinion ranks second to none in intelligence.

Even in the old days before there were any restrictions on New Zealand

birds the Kea was only very occasionally imported and then only to

Zoos. Very few, I think, have been in private hands. Given a large

outdoor aviary and a heap of large stones or rocks I see no reason why

it should not breed.


Those in authority at Mount Cook offered to let me take away

several Keas. I already had four, which I believe are cock birds.

I was offered hens, but somehow I had not the heart to take the birds

away from their happy little protected colony. Perhaps if they had

been in danger of extermination from the sheep farmers it might

have been a different thing. My own birds came from a different

district, and in time I may be able to procure hens.


The Kea stand for something so essentially New Zealand ; not

the New Zealand of to-day, but of that land of strange anomalies where,

until the coming of the “ pakeha ”, the unique vegetation and strange

bird life reigned supreme.


Like all the other natural products of that country, it does not

fit in with the scheme of things now. Barren hill-sides, destitute of

the alpine vegetation, barbed wire fences, and corrugated iron sheds

are no proper setting for the Kea. Every native product is sacrificed

on the altar of Mammon. The sheep farmers have extended their

domains right up to the snow line and all the alpine flora has been

burnt off ; no single ledge or patch where a sheep might get a mouthful

of grass has been spared.


The farmers in those regions, being true Britishers, had to kill

something, and in those days before the introduction of the chamois

and the thar the only living things were the sheep and the Keas, so

the Kea had to pay the price. As he was not on the list of conventional

sporting birds, an excuse had to be made for massacring this good-

natured and inquisitive bird, so they said that he ate the sheep. To

make this worse they said he ate the kidneys from living sheep. These

stories are very much on a par with the stories told in the English

country side of Nightjars sucking goat’s milk, of eagles carrying off



