| Kiwi Charateristics |
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Why are kiwi night birds?
The main reason is food. |
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| Brown kiwi feeding |
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While one kiwi variety does not mind stepping out in the midday sun, the other members of the kiwi family are strictly night birds.
Only the Southern Tokoeka on Stewart Island goes out during daylight, and only sometimes.
The main reason most kiwi are night birds comes down to food – when the sun goes down, many of the underground creepy crawlies they like to eat move up closer to the soil’s surface.
There could also be another, more sinister reason why the kiwi prefers the shadow of night. In prehistoric times, before land mammals arrived in New Zealand, ferocious carnivorous birds ruled the daytime skies. And they ate kiwi. The now extinct goshawk, like today's New Zealand falcon, was a deadly divebomber. And the giant Haast's eagle with its three-metre wingspan (also extinct), would have snatched and snacked on kiwi, given the chance.
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These hunters relied on sight and sound to find their prey. Which may be part of the reason the kiwi adopted the mantle of night. Kiwi are not New Zealand’s only nocturnal native animals. They share the forest with many night-time neighbours. | |
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