Country Calendar - A Bird in the Hand
- Documentary
- Nature
In 1965 King Country farmer Warwick Wilson bought 400 hectares of bushland on the Kuaotunu Peninsula in the Coromandel. He planned to clear the native bush and graze 3000 sheep, but when wool prices collapsed he changed tack. Forty-five years later, he runs a Northern Brown Kiwi sanctuary on his property. In this episode of the all-things-rural show, director/reporter Carol Archie talks to Wilson about his vision for Waitaia Bay, and follows guardians John and Paula Williams as they monitor nests and relocate healthy eggs to Rotorua for hatching. Safe from predators, the young kiwis return home to live out their lives.

Official website for Coromandel's Project Kiwi Trust
Article on Warwick Wilson and his sanctuary, NZ Life & Leisure, January 2012
Interview with Warwick Wilson, Radio New Zealand, August 2016
Information and recordings of the brown kiwi, Department of Conservation website
Information on the North Island brown kiwi, New Zealand Birds Online















