Tim Balme talks about his new Discovery Channel series.

Former Shortland Street bad boy Tim Balme talks to Cass Marrett about his love of birds and narrating the Discovery Channel series New Zealand: Evolution Islands.

Tim Balme, a long-time native of the New Zealand television scene, has always loved New Zealand, but being called a Kiwi has taken on an extra special meaning for him.

That comes from narrating the Discovery channel’s new natural history series, New Zealand: Evolution Islands, where the evolution of the kiwi is examined among many other unique species – including our living dinosaur, the tuatara.

“The series is just astonishing actually, there’s so much rich material,” says Balme.

“We always go round the world and we get teased – the kiwi being the bird that can’t fly,” he says.

“Actually, the kiwi used to fly, that’s how it got here. I mean we’re talking quite a long time ago right? Like quite a few million years ago. But when it got to New Zealand, the kiwi said, ‘You know what? This place is cool and there are no predators, so I don’t need to fly any more’.”

Balme, a farm boy at heart, grew up on the coast of Tauranga trying to keep his dog, Finn, out of trouble.

“Finn used to roam around actually on the beach, chasing seagulls and other things,” he says

And though his love for Finn was strong he says it was a ‘great Kiwi childhood’ that sparked his interest in nature.

“My father was a dairy farmer. His brothers were sheep farmers and he was a dairy farmer because he said sheep were too stupid,” Balme laughs. “Then he gave that up and then was an orchardist because, I guess, fruit are more intelligent than cows.”

These days he lives in Auckland with his wife and fellow New Zealand actor Katie Wolfe and their two children, Edie and Nikau.

Much to the disgust of the family cat (Charlie Eyes), Balme says if he could choose one creature to take home from New Zealand: Evolution Islands, it would be a giant bird.

“If I couldn’t have a kiwi, I’d probably have a Haast’s eagle which is like the biggest eagle ever known to fly in the world,” he says.

“M ori history suggests that at times, legend has it that it would scoop up little children.

“Not that I want to do that, let’s make that very clear, but I think it would be amazing to have witnessed a bird of that incredible stature flying around our skies.”

Reportedly, a Haast’s eagle’s wingspan could stretch up to three metres and its body was almost a metre-and-a-half long.

So, aside from scooping up children, what would Balme do with a bird of that size?

“Well it would be like having your own helicopter, right – because helicopters are really expensive,” he says.

“If you had a bird that big you could get it to take stuff for you around the farm and it’d be great.”

A gargantuan pet eagle is one way to get noticed for sure, but through the years Balme has had no issue making a name for himself.

He made his on-screen debut running down zombies in the 1992 Peter Jackson film Braindead, has written and starred in New Zealand series Outrageous Fortune and The Almighty Johnsons, and did his time on Shortland Street as bad-boy biker Greg Feeney.

Though Shortland Street has often been the door to overseas work for young Kiwi actors, Balme has kept his feet planted firmly on New Zealand soil, choosing to go from actor to writer, to all the things in between, and back again.

“I stay in New Zealand because I just always think that’s where I belong and I’m just really interested in telling New Zealand stories,” he says.

“But the diversification aspect is quite simple. That’s how you survive in this industry. You’ve got to have more than one string to your bow.”

Having finished his work on New Zealand: Evolution Islands, Balme is now focusing his attention on the fifth season of the successful Prime drama series The Brokenwood Mysteries.

“At this point in time, I have four tele-features in my head at various stages of production,” he says. “One’s about to start filming, I’m doing an edit on a second one, notes on a third and writing a fourth.” And if that wasn’t enough, Balme teases about an upcoming project with his wife Katie, but won’t tell me what it is just yet.

“Put it this way. I’m sure we’ll be doing a story about it with

you later.”