Forest Trip Guide

6. Danger in the Forest! - A Kiri Kiwi and Willie Weka Story

Story from Kiwi Conservation Club Magazine, February 1997. Associated Colouring Picture

Two men tramped through the forest, their boots crunching the dead branches and crushing the ferns. From beneath a fallen ponga, Willie weka watched them pass. He saw they carried sacks over their shoulders. He waited until they were out of sight and then went on turning over the fallen leaves, looking for hoppers.

Later that day Tama tui swooped by.

"Willie, there’s something funny in the rimu trees by the old totara."

"Funny – what sort of funny?"

"Oh – you know – peculiar" Tama said, and swooped away.

I’ll go and look, thought Willie. It made a change from hoppers.

He could hear the twittering as he approached the rimu trees. A group of whiteheads were flitting around a bird that clung to a rata vine, gasping with fright.

"What’s the matter?" asked Willie.

"She got caught in the cobweb" said a robin, perched below on a root. "She just managed to break free. It’s a monster cobweb."

Willie looked up and saw, hanging high up between the rimu trees, what was indeed a monster web.

"Wow!" Then he looked around. "What sort of spider makes a web like that?"

"No, it’s a human web," said the robin, "I saw humans putting it up."

"But humans don’t make cobwebs," said Willie. "In fact, I don’t thing it’s a web at all. I think it’s washing."

The frightened whitehead had recovered so all the birds gathered around to listen to Willie. "When their feathers get dirty, humans take them off and wash them," said Willie. "Then they hang them up to dry."

The birds were impressed. Willie had been into the town and seen things the forest birds had never dreamt of.

"Well, it’s very careless of them to hang their washing stuff in our forest," said a whitehead. "Whina might have been killed flying into it!"

There was a chorus of agreement.

"And what about Keelie? She roosts in the old totara and she’ll fly slap bang into the washing when she comes home this evening."

The birds gasped with alarm. Keelie kaka was a fast flier. She would have a terrible accident.

So the birds pecked at the knots anchoring the big web until it billowed down into a heap on the ground. Willie bundled it up and towed it into the undergrowth.

He told Kiri kiwi and their friend Henry about it later that day, when Kiri was awake and Henry had come home from school. Henry was very interested and persuaded Willie to show him the washing, hidden in the fern.

"It’s not washing, Willie," he said, "It’s a net."

"What’s it for?"

"I’m not sure," said Henry, "but most nets are for catching things. I think I should tell someone about this. Come on, let’s hide it away."

The birds sensed that Henry was worried. When he had gone home for tea, they decided to stay and hide near the rimu trees incase the men came back. Kiri found a place, hidden by a curtain of ferns, from where she could see the rimu trees. While Willie slept behind the ferns, Kiri kept watch and then woke him at daybreak to change places. It was while Kiri was sleeping and Willie keeping watch, that the two men returned.

They were angry to find their net had gone and they stamped around, waking Kiri, but they didn’t find the net or see the birds. They put up another net, high up, and went away.

All the birds came out to look, and the whiteheads flew about pecking at the knots while Kiri and Willie watched from below. But this time the knots had been secured with wire and the birds couldn’t loosen them.

"We’ll just have to wait for Henry," said Kiri at last. "And we’ll try to warn the others." The whiteheads set out to tell the tui, the bellbirds, the fantails and the robins to watch out for the net. Kiri and Willie crouched beneath it, each facing in a different direction, ready to scare away any careless bird.

As the morning passed, Kiri fell asleep. Then THUMP! Into the net crashed Keelie. She panicked, twisting and clawing at the strands. Within moments she was wrapped like a parcel, dangling and helpless. She screeched and screeched in terror. The bush birds flew twittering about her and Willie squawked at everyone to calm down. Then, with crashing boots, the men burst through the forest.

"Got it!" they shouted in triumph and lowered the net. "Watch out for that beak," said one man. The other one dragged Keelie roughly out of the net and pushed her into a sack.

"C’mon," he said, "let’s get out of here!"

He tossed the sack, with Keelie inside, over his shoulder while his companion started to stuff the net into another sack.

There was a shout.

"Hey you! What do you think you’re doing?" A ranger appeared on the edge of the clearing and behind him, panting, was Henry. The man with Keelie in his sack ran, but his mate, hampered by the trailing net, stumbled and fell. The ranger was on to him and they thrashed about in the leaf mould, struggling and grunting. The man had just pulled out a knife when Willie, who had been darting from cover to cover, ran forward and stabbed his beak into the man’s leg.

"Yeeow!" screamed the man, clutching his leg. The ranger scrambled to his and flipped the man over. Then he roped the man’s hands together behind his back, then pulled out his radio and called for help.

Meanwhile Henry was tearing through the forest after the man with the sack. He didn’t know what he could do but he kept on running. They were now both on the track leading out of the forest. In the distance Henry could hear a siren wailing.

Then around a corner, Henry came on an amazing sight. There was the man he’s been following, struggling in a net. It was caught around his legs and the more he struggled the more tangled he became. The sack lay on the track beside him.

Henry darted forward, grabbed the sack and melted into the trees.

When the police arrived they were mystified. They handcuffed the man and them untangled him from the net. As they did so, the ranger turned up with his prisoner. The man’s leg was dripping with blood. There was a great deal of confusion.

It was a while before they noticed Henry, standing quietly with the sack. Carefully the ranger lifted Keelie out. She was in a terrible temper and her feathers were badly dishevelled. The ranger felt her gently to make sure she wasn’t hurt. He tried to smooth her feathers too, but she pecked him hard and escaped.

The police officers and the ranger thanked Henry and shook his hand.

"That was very smart, the way you put that net low down across the track," said one officer.

"Really quick thinking," agreed another.

Henry didn’t know what to say. They thought he was just being modest.

The ranger and the policeman gathered up the nets and the sack as evidence and then drove away with their prisoners. Henry went back into the forest. He found Kiri, Willie and the little forest birds gathered in a rowdy group under the rimu trees. Keelie sat on a branch above them, preening her feathers and muttering to herself. Willie was acting out how he had pecked the man.

"Wow!" said the whiteheads.

They flew away when Henry appeared. He flopped down on the leaves with his friends and told them what had happened.

"Those men were smugglers," he explained. "They catch rare birds like kaka and sell them to bird collectors in other countries. It’s against the law – you know, illegal – and very cruel and nasty. I hope they get sent to prison! You were very brave, Willie."

"I know," said Willie. "You were brave too, Henry, chasing the other man and tripping him in the net."

"But I didn’t! I don’t know how the net got across the track. Where did it come from?"

Willie went and looked under the ferns. "That one’s gone," he said. "The net I hid under the ferns is gone. Somebody took it and set it across the track and it caught the bird smuggler."

Kiri made a small squeaky noise. Henry and Willie turned to look at her.

"Just a little idea I had," she said.