Wahine toa of kiwi clan

Anahera does not want to hear your stereotypes about middleaged women. This 40-something is still having babies: she and her latest partner, Nouveau (who is about 36 years her junior), produced a chick this season, putting Anahera’s tally at more than 60 over the course of her life.

Her body is in incredible shape – although she now takes calcium supplements – and today she embarks on a new adventure in a new neck of the woods: matriarch of the 13 kiwi being released.

‘‘She’s our biggest and strongest bird – the size of her feet is incredible – but she’s extremely gentle with her keepers and her mates,’’ says Jo Russell, general ¯ofOmanager torohanga Kiwi House, Anahera’s home for the last 42 years.

Anahera weighed 3.09kg at her latest health check. ‘‘ A bird this size could potentially kill her partner, but she’s very gentle with them,’’ Russell says. Well, her name does mean ‘‘angelic’’.

Anahera was found in the wild in Taranaki in 1980, at a time when kiwi numbers were fast declining.

torohanga she was placed in its captive breeding programme.

Not only has she produced an extraordinary number of chicks as part of Operation Nest Egg, but she has also been keeping alive an endangered gene pool of western North Island brown kiwi.

Anahera is being moved to Wellington because she’s in peak condition and will provide a ‘‘strong anchor’’ for the other 12 kiwi, Russell says. As the mature female, Anahera will establish the birds’ territory and start calling, providing stability for the other birds – two further pairs, in addition to her and Nouveau, and seven sub-adults.

‘‘When they get to Wellington, we want the kiwi to establish themselves. We don’t want the teenagers heading off to Parliament or Te Papa in the first few years,’’ Russell says.

There could be kiwi eggs laid in the hills above Mākara within months. ‘‘The singletons are ready to find a mate and get down to business, and Anahera could still be producing great offspring well into her 50s.’’