Okay, this isn’t a great photo, but it illustrates something I find really amusing about weka (Gallirallus australis). Weka don’t mind you getting near them, what they won’t tolerate is others of their kind getting close. If another starts closing in, one will start clucking, slowly at first, and becoming increasingly insistent as the intruder bird gets closer. If intruder bird doesn’t Back! Off! defender bird will chase it, in which case both will forget about you entirely while intruder bird runs in a zig zag trying to stay well ahead of defender bird, and one or both of them raise their wings. Trying to look bigger? Or maybe fly? As with quite a few of New Zealand’s native birds, weka don’t fly. They hang out in groups near human habitation—in this case a hut in the Kahurangi National Park—barely tolerating each other. In spite of their intolerance of each other, they are not a threatened species, so it seems their intolerance doesn’t last into the breeding season. Male and female weka share in the incubation of the eggs and care of the chicks.
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