At the foot of a towering fern, Pete Kirkman pushed his hand through a curtain of dead branches into a burrow.
Baffled by the daylight, the chocolate-colored nocturnal bird shook its pencil-like beak from side to side.
“You’re OK,” Mr. Kirkman, a conservationist, said soothingly, as he made the discovery last week.
He watched in delight as another hatchling charged out, searching for its sibling, and fell into his arms.
Starting in the 1800s, millions were slaughtered by nonnative predators like stoats, a mammal related to the weasel.
Persons:
Pete Kirkman, Mr, Kirkman
Organizations:
New, kiwis
Locations:
New Zealanders