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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
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Rebecca Shaw

The New Zealanders have finally done it – they’ve turned me into a bird-lover

A majestic kea with its bright orange feathers beneath its wings
‘Looking up at [a kea], my mouth agape, I realised – the New Zealanders have finally bloody done it. They’ve successfully turned me into one of them,’ … Rebecca Shaw. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

This week, during a visit to the Wellington zoo, I had a realisation about myself. No, it’s not that I wish to strip off all my clothes and live out my days swinging nude from the trees like a spider monkey, although that does sound great. It’s that after spending time on and off in Aotearoa the last couple of years (due to lesbian love), I have now fully become entrenched in the New Zealand mindset.

Walking around the zoo lesbianly, we checked out the extremely cute otters, met the adorable lemurs, raised our eyebrows at the capuchins (not because we were surprised to see them at a zoo, it’s a sign of friendliness) and encountered all sorts of beautiful creatures. But as it turns out, the animal I was personally most excited to see, the one that made me gasp out loud upon entering its habitat? The one I made sure to return to before leaving?

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