Father Kiwi Starts New 76-Day Sitting On Egg
(Special) NAPIER, This Day. NOT satisfied with keeping her mate sitting for 77 days to hatch out a third kiwi chick—making a total of. two adult birds and three chicks at the Hawke’s Bay Acclimatisation Society’s game farm—the female crept into the box where the male was nursing his charge on Saturday night and laid another egg. This will set him off on another sitting of at least 76 days.
On previous occasions there was a break for the male kiwi of at least six weeks between the hatching of a chick and the laying of another egg. The action of the female bird in laying an egg so soon after the arrival of the chick is puzzling those who have studied the habits of the birds.
What is more puzzling, however, is that the male bird should have allowed her to enter the nest to lay the egg. Normally the male will not let the female have anything to do with the chick or egg on which he is.sitting and attacks her and drives her away from the nest when she approaches. However, the new egg is under the male bird and the chick is being kept warm under his wing.
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Northern Advocate, 2 September 1947, Page 3
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210Father Kiwi Starts New 76-Day Sitting On Egg Northern Advocate, 2 September 1947, Page 3
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