Taken recently from our camp in Abel Tasman National Park where the flightless Weka has become very habituated to camps!
Wekas, or woodhens, are members of the rail family which are mainly aquatic birds, all capable of swimming well. Apart from the Pukeko and Weka, rails are secretive birds, usually found skulking in freshwater swamps and estuarine mangroves and reedbeds.
The Weka can be both inquisitive and pugnacious and in spite of being cooked and eaten by both Maori and the Pakeha settlers, the species seemed well able to resist the advent of man and his associated pests and remained abundant in many areas, only to vanish suddenly, between 1915 and 1940, from most of the North Island and parts of the South Island. It was abundant in the wider Gisborne region, its one remaining North Island habitat, until the early 1980s when it declined drastically from a population estimated to be approximately 88,000.
