Birds of New Zealand Birds of New Zealand The birds of New Zealand evolved into an avifauna that included a large number of endemic species (that is, species found in no other country). As an island archipelago New Zealand accumulated bird diversity and when Captain James Cook arrived in the 1770s he noted that the bird song was deafening. The mix includes species with unusual biology such as the kakapo which is the world's only flightless, nocturnal, lek (competitive display) breeding parrot, but also many species that are similar to neighboring land areas. A process of colonization, speciation and extinction has been at play
The Golden Bird The Golden Bird "The Golden Bird" is a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, number 57, about the pursuit of a golden bird by a gardener's three sons. A French version, collected by Paul Sébillot in "Littérature orale de la Haute-Bretagne", is called "Le Merle d'or" (The Golden Blackbird). Andrew Lang included that variant in "The Green Fairy Book" (1892). It is Aarne-Thompson folktale type 550, "The Golden Bird", a Supernatural Helper. Other tales of this type include "The Bird 'Grip'", "The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener", "Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf", "How Ian Direach got the