By Alison Balance (Potton & Burton, 2023)
I don’t want to stir up any more Bird of the Century controversy, but takahē are the best. For one, they are crazy-pretty. The takahē’s plumage, with its layers of blue, turquoise and shimmering green, is everything you need to know about how nature makes perfect beauty. Also, they are adorable, from their comically-oversized feet to their call, which sounds like an asthmatic gerbil being gently squeezed over and over.
But the coolest thing about takahē is their backstory; thought extinct for half a century, they were rediscovered living in remote valley of Fiordland’s Murchison Mountains in 1948 by Geoffrey ‘Doc’ Orbell ̶ a discovery that sent Doc and his team into a “state of ornithological ecstasy”. The world soon joined them.
Ever since, takahē have served as a poster bird for the endangered species of Aotearoa (so much so that Mr T, a lost takahē who needs a lift back home, stars in the safety video currently screening on Air New Zealand flights). This is both because they do remain threatened, with only approximately 500 birds alive today, and because theirs is a rare success story when it comes to bringing a flightless bird back from the brink in predator-ridden New Zealand.
Like the birds it documents, Takahē: Bird of Dreams is both hefty (it weighs a solid 1.5 kilograms, about half the weight of an adult takahē) and colourful, brimming with photos of the birds themselves, their habitats, the scientists who work with them, and the animals that threaten them. Stoats, in particular, do not come off well.
It’s the tale of the takahē from start (right back to the fossil record) to finish (the “last sighting” in 1898), to restart (the Doc’s discovery), to now.
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A mix of science, history and storytelling, this is a comprehensive survey of a unique animal that means so much to the place we, and they, call home.
Laura Williamson
