The Kiwi Hunt
She came for the birds and stayed for breakfast.
The ferns loomed in the damp forest air, and their prehistoric stalks interlaced above my head, filtering the light of the Southern stars. I walked away from the tramper’s hut, glancing back at its comforting familiarity. A few steps later it was indistinct, a shadow in a dark, jumbled landscape.
I’d wrapped my headlamp in cloth to dim its blinding beam, but covered with a bandana it gave off an eerie red glow that didn’t reach my feet but only intensified the darkness. I turned it off. The night was filled with the sounds of insects and birds. Pushing past the flower-laden branch of a kamahi tree, I stopped short, startled by the brassy trill of ringing church bells. It took me a minute before I recognized the song of a jade-feathered Bellbird. I’d heard it for the first time earlier in the day, but in the warm afternoon sunshine it had seemed muted. Now it resonated through the woods, and I stood still in the dark and listened.
For the past seven days I’d been walking the steeply pitched trails of Stewart Island, a jagged scrap of land off the southern tip of New Zealand, where the birds of Rakiura National Park thrived in isolation from the invasive predators of the main islands. It was a rugged spot, and the winter storms that raged across the Southern Ocean reminded its few residents that Antarctica was not so very far away.
It was February, though, and the sun lingered into long afternoons. When the track emerged from the trees, I stood alone on pale beaches, shedding sweaty clothes on my way to the water’s edge. I swam in the evenings, too, shivering and whooping from the cold, peeling mussels from the rocks to cook for my dinner, seasoning them with saltwater.
I had three more days of walking before I reached the island’s only settlement, where I would board a northbound ferry toward a series of buses, then a boat and train that would take me to Auckland, and finally, a flight to Spain to meet my boyfriend. Just three days left to spot a Kiwi bird, shy, flightless, nocturnal—and a beloved and endangered national icon.
I had made other nighttime forays like this one, creeping through trees, feeling foolish as I looked for … what? A roly-poly bird with a slender beak that would undoubtedly prefer I stay in my sleeping bag. A park naturalist had told me (without pausing as he sent the stiff, fuzzy body of an opossum sailing into the bush) that this remote spot would be my best chance to find the birds. I was determined to see one before my three-month trip ended.
It was my first big solo voyage. Although I had pored over travel books obsessively, discovering pre-war Dijon with M.F.K. Fisher and charting the South Pacific with James Cook, it seemed as if the maps were drawn and all the big adventures were collecting dust on library shelves. The frontiers had been conquered, and the casualties included the unassuming Kiwi bird, struggling to survive in a habitat transformed by introduced predators and development.
I felt that spotting a Kiwi would somehow prove that beyond the bungee jumps and backpacker hostels, undiscovered worlds were still shuffling through the earth’s dark forests, minding their own business.
Thinking of this, I ignored my timid urge to dash back to the safe, warm hut and continued through the trees, my ears twitching at every snapping twig and falling leaf. For what seemed like an hour I didn’t see a thing, and my walk down the trail began to feel like its own endeavor, as if I had come to this island for nighttime orienteering, not a quick glimpse of the local bird life. Then I heard a quiet shuffling in the trees, and I froze, staring hard.
The noises came closer, got louder. My heart was thumping against my ribs, and my surging adrenaline sharpened every sound. With sweating palms, I slipped the headlamp from my pocket and pointed it into the bushes, fumbling with the switch. When I turned it on, the round beam of light illuminated a patch of green pant leg that led to a muddy hiking boot.
I couldn’t have been more surprised if I’d seen a Kiwi bird. Standing in front of me was a young man a few years older than I, carrying a notebook and returning my look with a level gaze. He was slight, with dark blond hair that grew toward the wire rims of his glasses.
“Looking for Kiwis, then?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, aiming for nonchalance. “You?”
“That’s what I do most nights,” he said, with a smile. In fact, he was spending the summer in a small hut that belonged to the park, tracking the bird population. “I’ve just seen a whole family of Kiwi. Would you like me to show you where to find them?”
I couldn’t believe my ears—or my luck. Of course I wanted to see them. Of course.
Without much else to say, he turned in the direction that he’d come, and I followed his slim silhouette through the trees, away from the track and the little hut. Newspaper headlines flickered through my mind, but I stifled them. There are better places to look for kidnapping victims than empty forests in the Southern Ocean, I reasoned with myself. We walked on, ducking under fallen trees and brushing aside ferns.
After a few minutes he paused and put a hand out. Then he motioned me to his side and pointed to the ground in front of us. I squinted into the blackness, straining to make out shapes. Slowly, he took out his light and turned it on. In the sudden glow I saw three birds standing about six feet in front of us. Two adult Kiwi were the size of soccer balls, covered in long, slender feathers that swept back to rounded tails. An adolescent huddled between them, covered in fuzzy down. With beaks intent on unearthing bugs to eat, they scarcely seemed to notice us, and as we knelt down for a closer look, the notoriously timid birds didn’t budge.
We stayed for several minutes without speaking or moving, until at last the three birds ducked out of the light and into a low shrub, disappearing from view. After our silent observation of the Kiwis, his voice startled me.
“I’ve been out here for hours,” he said, yawning, “and I’m famished. Would you like to come back to the hut for a cuppa and a bite to eat?”
I stood up, thinking of my mother and of newspaper headlines, then shrugged. “I’d love to.”
This time we walked with our lights on, and soon after rejoining the track, came across a tiny rustic shack built with unfinished timbers. It was as cold inside as out, and while I sat on the only chair, he knelt by the wood stove, adding kindling to the faintly glowing coals. When flames caught the dry wood, he turned to the table that dominated the room, swept off a pile of maps and papers, and unfolded an ancient two-burner propane cooker.
He filled a teakettle, set it on a burner, and pulled a box of pancake mix from a mouse-proof bin on a shelf. Clearly accustomed to living in a cramped space, he moved with the efficiency of a sailor. He had one teacup, a fork and spoon, one plate. He handed me a steeping cup of tea, made his in a small bowl, then set out powdered milk and a bottle of honey.
It was two in the morning, and my dinner of mussels and pasta had been hours ago. My mouth watered when the batter hit the oiled skillet. Expertly, he flipped a golden fried pancake onto my plate and poured another perfect circle on the hot pan. Reaching the highest plank shelf, he pushed aside tins of beans and dried pasta, then brought out a treasure as rare on that isolated coast as a Kiwi bird in Auckland: a fresh lemon.
We spoke a bit while we ate, I suppose. He asked me my name, and about the paths that had taken me to that remote spot. I must have asked the same, but the details, such as his name, have slipped my mind in the ensuing years. I was eighteen years old, in love with the man who waited for me in Spain, but also with the keenness of being alone, the long days and self-reliance. As I recall the months I spent in New Zealand and my walk around the tiny, rugged island, I often think of that night.
What I remember, along with the dark and the quiet and the dusty comfort of that little hut, is the taste of fried pancakes, soaked with honey and lemon juice. Never before had I seen someone eat pancakes that way, and never since. But I still do, and never without a thought of my great Kiwi hunt, the rustle of feathers in the night forest, and the young man with blond hair and a way with a skillet.
Jennifer Rose Smith lives in Vermont, where she lives a sweet double life. For half the year she writes, travels, taps maple trees for syrup, and plots adventures. During the summer she is up to her elbows in flour and butter, whipping up globally inspired pastries to sell at her farmers’ market stand, The Nomadic Oven. She chronicles her adventures on her website, www.thenomadicoven.com.