SILVER EYE - TAUHOU

• This Silver eye is really lucky to be alive. I found it in our garden with two other baby chicks, as a newly hatched birds. They had fallen from their nest. A friend in our street was renowned for being able to rear birds, so I took the two wee birds to her.
• After weeks of tender loving care they grew larger and produced feathers and then we were able to find out what type of bird they were. Sadly one died, but the other survived to adulthood.
• Deirdre kept us informed of Tauhoe's progress and we visited on a regular basis. It was let out of its cage so it could learn to fly. It flew round always returning to the safe haven of its cage. As Deirdre had cats she decided it would have a better chance of survival in a bush garden where there were no cats. She tagged Tauhoe's leg and transported it to its new home.
• It stayed in the new garden often flying off and returning. We last heard that our tiny bird was doing well in its new home.

NZ Pigeon - Kereru

• The Kereru is one of the worlds most beautiful pigeons.
• It lives mainly in native forests but in winter can fly up to 25 km to gardens to feed on fruits, flowers and seeds, some birds covering an area of 25 square kilometers.
  
• They eat the fruits of 70 species of plants, but also on tree lucerne, broom, willow, poplar, guava, plum and pivet.
• Kereru can swallow whole seeds the size of a twenty cent coin, so is the only bird which can spread the large seeds of trees like miro, matai, tawa, taraire, puriri and karaka.
  

• Given the change these birds may live to 10 years old or more, but these days such old birds are rare.
• One of its Maori names (kuku) describes the bird's soft cry: 'ku-ku'.