Silly bird

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One night, we arrived at our designed campsite area pretty late, and as Tomer remembered that a guy once told him that some Kiwis live in the area, we decided to do some Kiwi watching before going to sleep. Now, turns out Kiwis, those flightless birds native only to New-Zealand, are quite rare and furthermore nocturnal, so it is really exceptional to see one in the wild. Hence, we weren't really expecting to see one. And indeed we didn't. We saw two.
The first one was a male, who stood just a meter from the road. As there was a group of people watching him even before we came (actually this is how we found him - it was probably some Kiwi watching tour) he was completely motionless, as a defense mechanism. We could only see his head and beak, but what a beak that was. And while we were all just standing there watching him, we suddenly heard a noise from the side. Expecting to see some possum (this country is full of them) we were quite supprised to find another Kiwi, standing on the road just a few meters from us. This was a female, according to the guide from that group, and didn't really mind us, getting even closer. It was walking in a really silly way, all wobbly in a way that reminded my of John Clise. It got to like less than half a meter from my leg, and for a minute there I really thought it was going to nibble on my foot which would be really silly as endangered species or not, I would have kicked it. Than it lost interest in us and went after the male, which of course took flight. They soon disappeared in the trees, making really loud screeches over something.
So, yes, saw a Kiwi.
Check.

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