A day in a life of a Takahe

A Day in the LIfe of a Takahe

The sun rises and warms my feathery body. I then slowly stir from my slumber to the sound of grass rrrrrrrrriping right next to me.  My fellow takahe have already started feeding on the green blades of grass. I finally get up, grooming my feathers and getting ready for another day roaming the swamps and grasslands.

My whole family is up already. Man what is it with my family, they wake up sooo early. I turned around and oh, it has been 1 hour since sunrise. Then I got ready to hunt for some beetles and weta.  Yum! I caught a big, juicy weta this time. I gobbled my excellent catch in one gulp! I had some more grass and found a small beetle on a blade of grass, YAHOO!!!. I turned around and realised that I was far from my family.

I quickly ran back to the rest of my family, but…. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a feather zoom past, then disappear in a jiffy.  I stayed as stiff as a brick jammed to a wall. I tried to s-l-o-w-l-y move to my family to not be a single, non protected target right in the open.  Then I saw something on top of a dead tree, I think it was staring at me. I got a closer look and found out it was a karearea ( Takahe’s natural predator). I ran, flapping my wings trying to escape the range of the grievous hunter.  I finally made it to my family and warned them about the threatening karearea that tried to hunt me down. We were all petrified and helpless. Our only safer option was to hide from the sight of the bird. We were safely hidden from the bird. The furious hunter was right next to me, I held my breath and prayed to the almighty BIRD GOD ,that I didn’t get devoured by that dark soul.  He finally went away, my family breathed a sigh of relief that the hunter had gone.  Phew, that was really close. Wow I can’t believe that I survived the claws of that mischievous enemy. I was also a little tired of all the commotion that was going on, that I almost fell asleep on the way to our nest.  Then when I was about to fall asleep, I saw a stoat stealing the eggs that were kept in the nest. Me and my family ran towards the pesky rodent and captured it. We snatched the eggs away from the stoat and gently placed the eggs on a nice, cozy patch of grass.  Ahh...that way such a tiring day. YAWN. I’m soo sleepy that I could…..SNORE.