Eight native birds, printed to order

The range

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  Kererū

  New Zealand pigeon

  The only bird left that is big enough to swallow the fruit of tawa and karaka and spread their seeds, so whole forests depend on it.

• 

  Tūī

  Parson bird

  Two voice boxes, a white throat tuft and a song that mixes bell notes, clicks and coughs with some notes people can’t hear at all.

• 

  Pīwakawaka

  Fantail

  Follows you along a bush track to catch the insects your feet stir up, tail fanned, never still for more than a second.

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  Kiwi

  Nostrils at the tip of its beak, whiskers like a cat, and an egg about a fifth of its own weight. It cannot fly and finds its food by smell.

• 

  Kākāpō

  Night parrot

  The heaviest parrot in the world, flightless and nocturnal, down to a couple of hundred birds, every one of them with a name.

• 

  Ruru

  Morepork

  Our only surviving native owl, named for its two-note call. It hunts moths and wētā at night on silent wings.

• 

  Kōtare

  Sacred kingfisher

  Perches on power lines above estuaries and paddocks, and digs its nest tunnel into a clay bank with its beak.

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  Takahē

  South Island takahē

  Declared extinct in 1898, found again in Fiordland’s Murchison Mountains in 1948, and still slowly climbing back.