Tā Tipene O’Regan, 87 years old, leaned into his carved walking stick and reached down to a large wooden box. He paused a second, then slowly lifted the lid. Out shot the hefty body of a bright turquoise bird, legs windmilling, launching from its cage like a football from a slingshot.
“I am now largely blind, but I still saw them,” O’Regan says: a flash of blue feathers and bright red legs racing for the tussocks.
