You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
New Zealand birds
New Zealand is home to a number of birds that live nowhere else on Earth.
What is a bird?
Birds have feathers and most of them fly. They have hollow bones which are light. Birds have a large breastbone that holds the strong flight muscles attached to their wings.
Birds don't have teeth and they use beaks and bills for feeding. They have two legs covered with dry skin and scales just like reptiles. When they breed, birds lay eggs.
Dominated by birds
New Zealand has been isolated from the rest of the world for a long time. Until people and other warm-blooded mammals arrived, New Zealand was filled with insects and birds. There were no land mammals except for bats, which meant birds were left to adapt and fill the areas which in other coutries were often filled by mammals.
Flightless birds
Many New Zealand birds have evolved to live on the ground. Before humans arrived, there were no land mammals that preyed on birds. Kiwi and the other flightless birds could therefore save energy by walking instead of flying, and safely feed and nest on the forest floor.
Takahē, kākāpō, and weka are also flightless and are all endemic to New Zealand.
Comparison of flying and flightless birds
| Features | of flying birds | of flightless birds |
| Feather cross-scetion | asymmetrical | symmetrical |
| Wings | longer | shorter |
| Feathers | fewer, in rows | more, all over the body |
| Bone anchoring flight muscles (keel) | well devloped | greatly reduced |
| Breastbone | rounded | flat |
- Try the New Zealand birds quiz.
Some people think kiwi use their beak to fight, like a sword. That would be like you head-butting someone with your nose!