Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: New Zealand Summer Vacation

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David Farrier returns to Aotearoa, New Zealand, to investigate why so many of New Zealand's native birds are flightless. Literally. David sets out to find three such creatures: the little penguin, the kakapo, and - of course - the useless kiwi bird. What happened to their wings, and why does the world’s heaviest parrot choose to live on the forest floor instead of the majestic trees? David learns why New Zealand birds are so stinky and marvels at the weight of the extinct Moa. Also, why did the world’s biggest FLYING bird live in New Zealand? And why does one particular flightless bird lead to so many ghost scares each year? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's betterhelp.com slash bird. I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander who got accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick Now I've been saying that introductory line since May of 2021 When we started this podcast I'd found myself stranded in America when New Zealand closed its borders to keep COVID-19 out I want to acknowledge that in no time in New Zealand's history has a power like this been used Thanks to that strong response, thousands of lives were saved in New Zealand. But it also meant my short trip to America suddenly saw me stranded here

like Matt Damon stranded on that ice planet in Interstellar. But I knew that if I just pressed that button, then somebody would come and save me. You fucking coward. Unlike Matt Damon, I wasn't a coward. I used my time to explore this strange land called the United States of America, each week diving headfirst into a puzzling new topic from toilets to circumcision to Disney adults. But eagle-eared listeners will have realized that my introductory line to every episode is deeply flawed, because I'm no longer marooned here in America. The border restrictions into New Zealand are gone, and I can come and go as I please.

It's not cheap to get home, but it's possible. A big part of being a New Zealander is being honest, so I wanted to come clean. So in today's episode, this metaphorical flightless bird gains the ability to fly, and wings his way back to New Zealand for a special New Zealand edition of Flightless Bird, about non-metaphorical flightless birds. So grab those Lord of the Rings DVD box sets and prepare for a visit to Middle Earth, because this is the Flightless Bird episode. Prodigal son returns. I'm back. I've been in New Zealand and I brought back a real stellar episode.

I'm excited to share it with you. I'm excited. But what have I missed? What's been going on? We last spoke Christmas. I mean, look, we've texted. We saw each other at the Christmas. Special. Yep, we did.

And then we sort of parted ways. What's been going on in Monica's world? Let's see. I roasted a couple chickens. That's cool. That's gone okay. It was my New Year's resolution last year to learn how to roast and carve a chicken, and I didn't do it.

You did two of them this year, did you say? Yeah. It's going well. I'm getting better, but it is smoking my apartment because I have no ventilation. And so the smoke detector goes off and I have to stand on a chair and wait. So that part's bad. I lived in an apartment in New Zealand and I live in a small one bedroom here in LA. And I often feel when you're living in a small place, cooking does take on a whole different kind of thing because you are really immersed and you're going to be living with that smell for a good couple of days.

I know. This is the part I'm really struggling with because I want to keep making chickens. I love the taste so much, but I hate the whole apartment is permeated with the smoky chicken smell. All my clothes. It's like not worth it. You don't want people when they walk into your apartment just to think immediately chicken. I'm in some sort of KFC or something. And you don't even know this, right, about the time I tried to poach fish. Oh, my God. What a disaster that was.

It was so bad. It smelled so bad for so long. I was so self-conscious. It's a true horror show. Now, I feel you. I have the same problem. I just choose not to ever cook. That's my solution.

I just always get takeout or go out. And I feel like in America, there's so many more options to do that than in New Zealand. America makes you very lazy if you want to be lazy with food. I'm saying that as a positive thing. It can be kind of great. Yeah, it's easy. That's for sure. Do you have any questions about New Zealand?

Because I've been back in my homeland, you know. I know you don't care about New Zealand, but that's where sure do you have any questions about new zealand because i've been back in my homeland you know i know you don't care about new zealand that's where i'm from you know i do care oh and you know i got a special thrill when i was putting up my christmas tree because last time you went to new zealand or at some point a long time ago you brought us back treats you brought us back that delicious chocolate that we never ate. And also that gross chocolate that we did not like, that orange chocolate. You didn't like Jeffers. No, I didn't. And then you brought a cute little teddy bear

and a little tiny New Zealand Starbucks mug that's actually an ornament. So I put that up on my tree and it made me think of you and New Zealand. That made it to your tree. That's so nice. It was such a cute little cup. It was so impractically small. And I guess I didn't realize it was an ornament. I thought I bought you just a tiny cup, but I had actually bought you a sort of a decoration. You did. And I loved it. You know, I have a bajillion questions about New Zealand. I don't even really know where to start. You were wondering about Santa's attire in New Zealand. That's right.

On the beach. That's true. I am confused about, do you have Target in New Zealand? Let's start there. I think we might. We've got like a smaller version of Target. We've got Target Mini. Okay.

Okay. Well, when you walk into Target Mini and there's all these little Christmas decorations to decorate your house or apartment with, is Santa in a bathing suit because it's hot there? Or is it still the snowy imagery? Yes. So we are split down the middle. It goes both ways. So there's the American Santa who is in very warm clothing and it's snowing all around him and there's that kind of thing. But most of the imagery from any New Zealand company is Santa in shorts. You can see his little white legs and he's by the beach frying some sausages. No. Wow. Actually, the big news story recently in New Zealand,

just so you can get an idea of what kind of leads our news, there's an island off the coast of Auckland, which is our sort of biggest city called Waiheke. It's always in Lonely Planet's top five places to go in New Zealand. There's wineries. I joke it's kind of where we send all our worst people because it's just full of the kind of people you expect to be on an island that has a lot of wineries on it. It's very like high pollution.

I would love to go there. Yeah, I'd send you there. How dare you? You just called me the worst person. So don't take it personally. It's a certain vibe on Waiheke, but there's a big scandal going on on the island because someone keeps dropping sausages in letterboxes. To kill animals? No, it's that. So I don't know if you have them here, but in New Zealand, one of our favorite

barbecue things to do is to get a sausage and you wrap it in a layer of thin, you butter some bread, you put the sausage in and you wrap up the sausage in the bread and put tomato sauce in there. Do you have that? Oh, you mean ketchup, right? Oh no, we're back. I'm back again. Yeah again yeah ketchup tomato sauce is ketchup here so it's a white bread you butter the white bread you put a sausage in the bread you put a squirt of ketchup on there and you roll it up do you have that here yeah but it's not in a bun it's a flat piece of bread that you wrap around the sausage it's similar to a hot dog anyway on wahi island which is you know this high falutin tootin island in new zealand

someone keeps dropping these sausages wrapped in bread in people's litter boxes which fresh off a barbecue is a delicious treat but if you find it the next morning sitting on top of your mail, it's like a soggy, meaty mess. Your mailbox. I thought you said litter box. Oh, it's the accent. Oh, yeah. It's good to be back. I got to learn to enunciate. Letter box. My letter box. No, mailbox is what we say here. And then litter box. I feel like I've reverted. I feel like I've gone back about a thousand steps in my journey to become American. You spent like one month in New Zealand and you are at square one back here.

I should also explain that a very American thing happened when I got back, which explains why we're not in the same room right now. I got buddy COVID when I got back here. I know. Welcome back. Welcome back. But that is your fault because you were supposed to, speaking of wine, have wine with me. And then instead you went on what you called a trip, which I was confused about because you said, let's do tomorrow because I've gone on a trip. And I was like, wait, do you mean an acid trip? Do you mean? I was very confused. Acid trip?

Do you mean? I was very confused. Yeah, there was a lot of confusion. No, a friend had picked me up and we went on a car trip, which is what you say in New Zealand. If you go in a car, you say you're going on a trip. It's never sort of acid involved. Well, maybe it is. Anyway, I went on a trip and I think that's where I caught COVID. So I should have teachers me for not coming and having a wine with you off tripping around the country.

I know. Did you have fun though? On the trip, it was good. It was a good trip. It was a good trip. It was great. But the other thing actually I should note about New Zealand, which happened since I got back, is that our Prime Minister has resigned, which is quite big news. I saw that. What did you feel when you read that? I felt sad because I think she's a pretty great leader, but I sort of felt happy for her because she gets to take a holiday. Like it's been full on.

She's had almost two terms as prime minister and there's been a terrorist attack at these two mosques in Christchurch. There's a volcanic eruption, obviously COVID. It's a lot. And so I think it's kind of great. She can have a bit of a break on her own terms.

In New Zealand, are you maxed out at two terms like you are here? She could go on for more. Oh, she could. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, running to the election, because of the really intense response to COVID that I mentioned in the opening, where we sort of closed the border down and we took it really seriously, a bunch of New Zealanders really didn't like that. And so definitely her popularity of her in the party in the polls has gone down. So it's not like she's walking into this election where the entirety of New Zealand loves her. Like we had this really strong sort of deranged conspiracy.

Oh, I don't know how you describe it. There was a lot of craziness in New Zealand and a lot of that sort of hatred turned towards her. And so she's got, I would say, an excessive amount of pushback than your typical prime minister because of her COVID response. And I think because she's a woman as well, like just a lot of pushback. And so I think she's just ready for a break, you know? Yeah, understandably. Have you ever talked to her? I weirdly, I know her because it's New Zealand and everyone knows everyone. I knew her before she became prime minister. No way. We're sort of friends.

You're friends? Yeah, yeah. So we text and stuff occasionally and do little voice memos and stuff back and forth. What? What? It's New Zealand. Everyone knows everyone in New Zealand. I don't know, David.

I don't know. Everyone just texts and does voice memos with the prime minister. Yeah, I sent her a message just saying, I'm glad you get a bit of a break, you know? Oh, my God. That's my dream with Obama. Yeah, it's nice to have sort of text buddies, you know, that you can like send little things to now and then. Then the great thing about her is you never want to talk about politics with her because she's so sick of it. So I'll just go to her for like relationship advice and that kind of stuff.

Anyway, we're getting off the trail. All right, great. I don't even know what you're about to present. I thought for this because the whole show, you know, it's called Flightless Bird. It's sort of a metaphor, isn't it? I was trapped in America. I'm sort of flightless. I can't get home. But of course, in New Zealand, we have a lot of flightless birds, literal flightless birds, birds that have evolved to sort of be useless and not fly. And so I thought, I'm going back. So why don't we learn a little bit about them? Oh, great. Okay. Also, this is an Easter egg. In New Zealand, they don't have rabies. easter egg in new zealand they don't have rabies and we learned that via an incident that you endured that is coming up honestly coming back to america has been rough i got covid and i got

bit by a fucking squirrel oh it's been horrible actually it's not so rabies is going to be another upcoming episode the rabies episode i'm okay is all i'll say i'm i episode, the rabies episode. I'm okay, is all I'll say. I don't have rabies at the moment, which is a real blessing. Because if I had it, I'd be dead. Listen, can we just pause for one sec? How did that happen? You were feeding it? No, that's the thing.

I wasn't feeding the squirrel. It approached me and bit me. Wait, really? But you stuck your hand out though i was minding my own business in the park the squirrel approached me and as a sign of friendship i reached out my hand okay yeah and it just sunk its little teeth in and that set off a whole chain of events so it'll be a rabies episode of this podcast and it's a lot but the main things i enjoyed being in new zealand just quickly before we learn about our bird life i loved

sitting on the toilet and not having the water level so close to my bum oh you like that was great so much of your poop i mean you see less of my poop because the water level's so low because basically in amer, if you use a toilet, you do a shit, you look there, it's all floating in this massive pool of water. In New Zealand, the water level is so low, when you do number twos, the poo is right at the bottom of the bowl and the second you hit flush, it's gone. It's out of out of there right but it's also probably above the water so it probably smells no there's enough water where it's covered but not excessively covered so i love that i loved encountering absolutely zero shower curtains i had no shower curtains

touching my body there was no tipping confusion when i dined out or got a coffee i went to a starbucks in new zealand there was no little thing Do you want to tip a dollar? Which, by the way, is way over 20%. And that is a trick when it says, do you want to tip a dollar on your coffee? Because that's way over 20%. You think it's cheap. It's not. Oh, well, that's okay. We can be generous. And I drank water direct from the tap and it didn't have any dead bodies in it. Oh my God. No Cecil Hotels? Yeah, no Cecils. Oh, my God. So I had a great time.

Wow. I'm glad you enjoyed it. But did you miss us? Yeah, I did miss you. I still miss you guys. It's like a weird soft entry where I haven't got to see anybody yet because I've had this disease, sort of the rabies and COVID. And it's like a soft launch back in. But I like to think that next week, if no other hideous things happen to me,

we can have a wine finally. Yes, I would like that. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Flightless Bird is brought to you by Athletic Greens. Now, I use AG1 literally every day because I know I don't have enough good stuff in my diet. So I'll literally wake up, I'll pour my filtered tap water into a cup, I'll put in a sachet of AG1, I'll mix it up and I know that I'm set for the day. When I travel, I take sachets

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your snack supply with an assortment of over 36 sweets, smoothies, juices, and more things. Head to factormeals.com slash bird50 and use the code bird50 to get 50% off your first box. That's code bird50 at factormeals.com slash bird50 to get 50% off your first box. 50% off your first box. Okay, I'm going to teach you about flightless birds. Okay. It takes a really long time to fly from America back to New Zealand. And as I folded my long frame into a seat, I flicked through the in-flight entertainment where I settled on Avatar, which would shave 2 hours and 40 minutes off the 12-hour trip.

I did the maths and realised if I watched it seven times in a row, I'd be home. I thought about what a strange thing Avatar is. James Cameron moved to New Zealand about a decade ago, where he's dedicated his entire life to exploring the ocean in his submarine and making more Avatar films. I'm down in New Zealand shooting. We're shooting the remainder of the live action. We've got about 10% left to go. We're 100% complete on Avatar 2 and we're sort of 95% complete on Avatar 3. We're very lucky in that we chose this as our production site years ago.

We made the first film here in New Zealand. It's ranked either the first or second best country in the world for its COVID response. That COVID response meant James Cameron was stuck in New Zealand making Avatar 2, 3, 4 and 5 while I was in America making Flightless Bird. I drifted off to sleep, dreaming of Navi and James Cameron's submarine. And seven avatars later, I was back in New Zealand, where I'd promised Monica, Rob and Dax I'd deliver an episode of Flightless Bird. There was a host of topics I could choose from. Our famous mince and cheese pies. Our obsession with rugby. Our female Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Lord. Or maybe something about our ongoing love affair with Lord of the Rings.

But then I turned to the show's name for inspiration. Birds. It's a beautiful oyster catcher just next to the road. It's those bird sounds that I've really missed being away from New Zealand. I'd driven a few hours north to a remote beach where I was reminded of something I truly love about New Zealand. Our bird life. Just heavenly. Like a chorus of angels. That's an oyster catcher. These plump black birds with stick-thin red legs that run back and forth as

the tide comes in, grabbing what they can from the water and sand. They're always paired up, always in love. I make another drive to my parents' place and do some recording outside. There are birds everywhere. My mum and dad love birds, and at the moment they're especially proud of the tiny quail that stop by the house. But none of these birds would do for this episode, because they can all fly. I would need flightless birds, New Zealand's main weird thing. I mean, the whole point of a bird is that they can fly. But here in New Zealand, we do things a bit differently, I guess. All my life I have worked with birds since I was little. You know, that's what I like it. That's what I wanted to do. And I'm really privileged of having been able to make a living and sustain my family with something that

I enjoy. I've driven to Auckland Zoo, New Zealand's biggest zoo, to meet up with Juan. That's not a New Zealand accent. Juan is Spanish. He's curator of birds here at the zoo and he's my ticket to meeting New Zealand's main flightless birds all in the one place. Juan did his PhD in avian nutrition and has worked at zoos with birds all around the globe. I love birds. A lot of people don't understand why birds are so interesting. What was it about birds that made you get bird obsessed? That's a difficult one. I mean, I always loved them.

I'm more of a hands-on person, so I'm not so much into bird watching as more into captive management and husbandry. So I like to interact with them. I like to take care of them. I like to facilitate them to breed. I like to help them conservation-wise. take care of them. I like to facilitate them to breed. I like to help them conservation-wise. The legacy of them, the feathers, the colors, the songs. I mean, there's so many things. I mean,

the egg, the egg is such an amazing concept, you know, all the life coming from a complete enclosed package, you know. Birds are amazing, and I'm going to meet three flightless ones today. Now, a quick history lesson. New Zealand was isolated for about 80 million years and before people came along it was basically just a shitload of forest with heaps of birds. What there was nothing of was mammalian predators. No cats, no dogs, no bears, no stoats, no rats, nothing. And because of this, New Zealand birds realised they didn't need to fly. There was nothing to fly away from. They preferred just to walk around like the rest of us. And so New Zealand ended up with a bunch of flightless birds. There were several different species of moa, but this one was the biggest.

It stands three meters tall. But is this really what it looked like when it was alive? I'd love to meet our biggest flightless bird, the moa, but it's dead. Humans killed it. So right now, I'm meeting one of the tiniest flightless birds in New Zealand, the little penguin. Now, New Zealand has a lot of penguins. More species of penguin are found in New Zealand than any other country. We've got 13 of the 18 total species that exist on the entire planet. Juan leads me into a backstage part of the zoo, because as well as being a zoo, they're involved in a bunch of wildlife recovery. Auckland Zoo has a colony of rescue penguins, ones that haven't done so well in the wild. Eventually, the zoo wants to start breeding them.

And right now, they're hand-raising a little penguin chick. Chris is on feeding duty today. What are you doing in here? What's your job? I'm just giving some fluid to the penguin. Not a fish feed at this stage, just some water to keep it hydrated. And what sort of penguin is this? This is a little penguin, or little blue as they used to be known. Yep, the smallest penguin in the world. I peer down into a little enclosure, and there's no penguin in sight. Where is he? Is he? Just down here. I can actually,

I'll get him out. I'd love to see him. Oh my goodness, I've never met one of these little flightless guys before. Chris leans in and lifts up a little box that's in the corner, revealing the tiniest little fluffball of a penguin I've ever seen. Oh, look at him. Him or her? We're unsure yet. We've been calling it him, so we'll be very disappointed if it's a girl. Hello. Oh, the smallest, fluffiest little creature.

How old is this penguin, would you say? Oh, we're at, what are we, 32 days now. I lean in and put my microphone up to its tiny beak. This is what he said. I listen to its little peeping noises and think how pathetic and useless it is. Absolutely incapable of flight, both now and when it's an adult. So a lot of people think that their houses are haunted when they have these penguins under their houses because of the kind of noise and they don't expect penguins to come so far inland. They travel a couple of kilometres from the coast.

So they're walkers, they use those little feet? Definitely walkers and climbers. They jump, and you wouldn't expect them to get up where they can get up, but they do. Maybe not this guy right now, but... ..but he'll have his time out with the other adults, and I'm sure he'll pick that up. Birds are meant to fly, aren't they? Well, yeah, it's a common trait of birds.

I guess having such a unique country like New Zealand that's been in isolation geographically from the rest of the world has meant almost a de-evolution, in a sense, to the point where they didn't have to, because flight is an extremely energy-expensive behaviour and mode of transport. It'll be like us running everywhere. And if we don't have to, then we don't.

I leave Chris and the baby little penguin behind. While I've been saying penguin a lot, I think about a man who can't say penguin, Benedict Cumberbatch. He can't say it, the word, penguin. This is an actual documentary he narrated. This is a supercut of when he has to say penguin. Is penguins, crested penguins, parent penguin heading home?

So why are these woodlands so attractive to penguins? Penguins. Graham Norton actually hit him up about it on a talk show. Of all the questions we had, the one that came up most often was, ask Benedict to say the word penguin. What is this about? Well, apparently I got it wrong repeatedly in a documentary.

It wasn't a documentary about said animal. It was a documentary about, I think, about the South Pacific in general. And now I'm completely terrified of the word. I don't go near it. The funny thing is you don't do this in isolation. You have a team of natural history experts based in Bristol, funded by you, the taxpaying public. It's not just me sitting there at a booth going, I think I know how to say penguin, I'll say penguins. It's mortifying. I might not be as rich, handsome, talented, or smart as Benedict Cumberbatch, but I can say penguin. Now, another weird thing about flightless birds is they have a smell,

like that musky, musky friend that prefers not to use deodorant. Because they evolved with no predators, they didn't need to hide their smell from them. So as well as not being able to fly, they got smelly. We're off to visit one of the stinkers now, my namesake, the kiwi. Never sniffed a kiwi. How would you describe the smell of a kiwi? It's a nice, musty, like forest smell. This is a problem for New Zealand's flightless birds, and why they're in so much trouble, because now there are predators introduced along with all the people. Once we've introduced these mammalian predators, now they smell too bad. They can't fly away. They've never had to deal with predators. Stoats and dogs and cats are everywhere,

and our flightless birds don't stand a chance. They're too useless. That's why places like the zoo are involved in so much bird recovery work. The amount of people we get in here in the zoo see some of our native birds and then the kids are like, oh, our cat bought one of those in the other day. And the parents, super embarrassed, and they try and say, oh, no, it wasn't. No, no, our cat's an inside cat. But these are real discussions we need to be having,

especially cats, especially cats, because you can't control them. Another fun fact, New Zealand loves cats. For every household here, there are 2.5 cats. It's cat chaos. Plus, there are the 11 million feral cats that aren't even counted in that statistic. And as we all know, cats and birds don't get on. I'm a tweed with a bird in a deodorant page. Tweed is my name but I don't know my age.

I don't have to worry and that is that. I'm safe in here from that old putty cat. If we lose them here, we lose them everywhere. This is the last haven for these endemic species. So it's what makes them so unique and so precious. And, you know, a lot of people do think they're quite fragile, but you put them in an area with no predators and everything they need, the populations boom again. So it's definitely not the case that they're too fragile.

It's that they've developed over thousands of years in a habitat that's absent of the things that now it isn't absent of. We've arrived in another part of the zoo where they're hatching and raising some fresh kiwis. Auckland Zoo is part of Operation Nest Egg where kiwi eggs are taken from the wild if they're in areas with a lot of predators that will eat the eggs if they're in areas with a lot of predators that

will eat the eggs before they can hatch. So they hatch them here, let the kiwi chicks grow until they're a decent size, then let them go into the wild again. I meet Catherine, mother to the kiwis. I'm on the bird team here at the zoo. And you've got some baby kiwis, I hear. Yeah, three currently. Are you a fan of the kiwi? Who isn't a fan of the kiwi? I don't know if you're allowed to say that in this country, that you don't like a kiwi, right? It's not my favourite bird, but I do like a kiwi.

Now, America has the bald eagle as its mascot, a strong, vicious killing machine. The peak of bird evolution sees it tearing other small mammals apart with its talons and beak. New Zealand has the kiwi, a massive ball of fluff that can't fly and gets eaten by pretty much everything. Okay, maybe I'm being a bit harsh. They're not completely useless. Kiwi are actually really easy to rear because they eat for themselves as soon as they hatch. They've got this big yolk sack that when they

hatch, that will feed them for up to like 10 days. It sits just underneath the skin, like in the abdomen region. That's quite good evolution, isn't it? It's amazing. Are they a tough little bird, the kiwi, or are they pathetic? The older they get, the tougher they get. So as soon as they hatch, they're pretty vulnerable. So if you imagine like a ball of fluff, not dissimilar to your microphone, that hatches really smelly. So it's in a burrow and imagine like some mammal coming along that sniffs it out. So it's really vulnerable at that stage.

And it's quite happy to sit in our arms at that stage once it's just hatched. The older it gets, once it gets to three weeks, they want to be out of here. They're desperate to leave us. They're kicking away. We've entered a tiny room and I'm staring into what looks like a small oven. It actually looks a little bit like that cat drying device I discovered in the cat show episode of Flightless Bird. But this little oven is a special incubator that contains a tiny, recently hatched kiwi bird. special incubator that contains a tiny, recently hatched kiwi bird. Catherine gently reaches in and lifts out a tiny fluff of kiwi that's been huddled in a temporary nest made from a curled up towel. He's got big feet, which I'll flip him over so you can see, and you'll see this big yolk I've been talking about. So these are his giant feet. And can you see this big belly here? So that's all yolk under there.

So it'll all shrivel up in 10 days, you know, and flatten out alright. I guess I'll show you his wing because he's getting a little fidgety now. So you can see what's left of the Oh, it's just a little nub, isn't it? Yeah, I know. So not

used for anything we know about. Wow, it's the most pathetic little thing ever, isn't it? So for the record, this flightless bird does have a wing. It's just utterly useless. This little pink nothing. It's like a little nub. I know they say it's not the size that counts, it's how you use it. But the Kiwi can't use this thing for anything.

Is there any use for this little nub that we just saw? It's totally like vestigial now. For balance? No, it's too little. It's about that small as an adult. Poor little thing. Without people helping, would New Zealand's flight and spirit population just all be dead and gone? Absolutely, yeah.

There would be no Kiwi, I would say, if there was no work being done. There's less than 5% chance of a Kiwi reaching adulthood if there's no predator control. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Flightless Bird is brought to you by Modern Fertility. Now, did you know that one out of eight couples struggle with infertility? It's a staggering statistic that most people don't know or aren't ready to even begin talking about. But we need good data and information about our bodies in order to have informed conversations with our doctors and make the best decisions for ourselves and our futures. That's why Modern Fertility was created. It's an easy and affordable way to test your

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which is a fraction of what it would cost at a fertility clinic. Get $20 off your fertility test when you go to modernfertility.com slash bird. modernfertility.com slash bird. All right, Monica, how are you feeling so far? Are you feeling like you're learning about beautiful Aotearoa, New Zealand? Oh, I felt like you were speaking a different language all of a sudden. Well, temporarily I was. I'm not, I'm very terrible at today-o. That's one word I can just about say. Could still use some work. That was so fascinating. I felt like you really

transported us. I felt like I was there. Oh, good. Yeah. I just wanted you to hear some of those little peeping bird noises, that little penguin peeping up. I wanted you to feel that little kiwi's horrible. I mean, the little nub of wing really was disgusting. It was? The feathers of kiwi are almost really soft hair, so it's like a really beautiful bird, but you brush that hair away and these really fine feathers and there's this horrible little tiny nub of pink wing. It's so gross. But yeah, and I think it's really interesting

because I didn't even know that that's a real problem that we have, is stinky birds. How big was the penguin? Oh, so tiny. I'd say he was maybe five inches. What? About five inches high. He was just a little chick, so he was tiny and fluffy

and was honestly the cutest little thing I've seen. All these birds are really, really cute. But how big will he get? I'm going to look it up now because I don't want to give the wrong information here. Little penguin height. 12 inches. To a one foot. Oh my God, how cute. I want one of those. They're pretty cool. Now, one fun fact about New Zealand that kind of runs counter to all of this

is that we used to have the world's biggest eagle way back in the day. So Moa died out because we hunted them. They were like the ultimate chicken, right? It's like 300 chickens in the one bird feed a whole village. And Moa, by the way, they evolved to the point where they didn't even have vestigial wings. There was no wings on them whatsoever, which is really rare. But because Moa was so big, New Zealand for a period before Moas got killed out also had

the world's biggest eagle. you seen lord of the rings have we talked about this yeah i have not i barely remember lord of the rings and i sort of an unpopular opinion but i don't really like it's not my thing yeah but there's one scene where like a wizard is riding this big bird this big eagle thing and that was based on the hast eagle which was the world's biggest eagle whoa and it only died out in New Zealand because its food source, the moa, got killed. So humans killed the moa. And then the world's biggest eagle died because it didn't have these giant birds to eat. So once upon a time, New Zealand, as well as having all these useless flightless birds, did have the biggest, most majestic flightful bird on the planet,

which is kind of crazy. I never even, which is so dumb, but I never even thought twice about why birds evolved to fly. Obviously, they evolved to fly to escape predators, but I didn't ever even think about that. I'd never really thought about it either. You just kind of look at animals and you're like, oh, this one has wings and this one doesn't. Yeah, but it makes sense. I hadn't thought that flight uses so much energy.

It's such an impractical thing to do if you don't have to do it, which is why New Zealand birds were like, screw this, we're just going to walk around. This is way more restful than all this flying we're doing. Why are we flying if we don't have to? Right. Which is weird because as a human, when you think of special abilities you want, everyone either wants to be invisible or fly. Whereas birds, you give a bird a chance and it will be like, screw this.

I want to fucking sit down and rest and throw a few million years in and suddenly you lose the ability to fly. Oh my God, that is crazy. Now, when you were on your flight, I think we texted for a second and I said, David, take this time to write me a death note. That's a ding, ding, ding to an old episode where you said that you have notes ready on your phone to send out in case your plane is crashing. Yeah, yeah. You want to be able to quickly communicate with people. All your feelings. All the things that have been left unsaid, you just lay it on them as you're about to die. Yeah. And I asked if you would take some time to write me one and I want to just follow up

and see if you were able to do that no this no that's a really fair question and I'm absolutely caught out I'm going to be honest because this is my year of honesty I've been honest about a lot of things lately I didn't write any extra notes on that trip because I got distracted by James Cameron's avatar oh that's the worst answer ever. Because avatar is only just fine. Monica, look, one thing that's changed. I have added you in my address book to the list that gets a message.

Oh! But it's like... But it's the generic one? It's generic. So it's like, says some nice generic things. Because honestly, but Monica, don't find this offensive. Because honestly, the people that get these messages, there like three people and it's so intense and i don't even know if you want to be included in that do you know what i mean it's not necessarily a good thing it's just

like laying down all the things i haven't said it's not necessarily good have you ever met me obviously i'm dying to be in that group i want want the longest letter. I want the most impassioned letter. Three people? Look, you brought it up again, and I know this is important to you, and it's my year of being honest and being less selfish. So I'm going to also think about this now and maybe adding you on some other tier of death message. I'm going to let you off the hook. It's not

selfish of you to not have a letter for me. It's selfish of me to want a letter, but it's not my year of being not selfish. So I'm still going to request that that happens. Okay. Now I note that I did check as I was departing Los Angeles for New Zealand, I did sort of check some of the things I wanted to say to some other people that I did check as I was departing Los Angeles for New Zealand, I did sort of check some of the things I wanted to say to some other people that I haven't checked the death notes for a while. And there were some updates that I wanted to add, so I need to do that as well because a few things have changed. So I'm actually glad I checked because if I sent some of those messages out,

they would have been out of date a little bit. I'm just dying to read those. Oh, the other thing I did in New Zealand, or we meant to do it, but we didn't do it actually, was Festivus. We meant to do that over Christmas, but didn't do it. So I'm thinking this year, maybe we can have a go at that, which is where you air the grievances that you have with each other at the end of each year. So that's a tradition. Unfortunately, this trip was too fleeting. I couldn't do it, but it made me think I should maybe bring that tradition into our little circle.

That's a New Zealand tradition, Festivus? No, no, it's not. It's actually from Seinfeld, but I've been celebrating it for quite a while now. And I think if, you know, me and you and Rob and maybe the whole extended sort of family could get together and you basically in a circle go around saying what everyone has done to wrong you during the year. It's sort of an airing of grievances and it goes around the circle until everyone has had their grievance aired. Oh, wow. Okay. I might be sick that day. That sounds intense. It's a lot. It starts off jovial. People will bring up things that are a bit more light hearted, but it will end with someone crying or storming out.

It gets really full on. Anyway, should we go back to learning about sort of our main, most exciting flightless bird? Yes. Oh my God. Okay. Let's travel back in our minds back to beautiful New Zealand. During my trip to New Zealand, I've encountered something quite rare and amongst all the flightless birds, an American. It's not James Cameron. This one is female and has little interest in Avatar. I'm curious what their experience is being like in New Zealand. Can you just tell me what your experience was as an American coming to New Zealand? What happened to you? Sure. So I immigrated to New Zealand with my parents and my siblings 25 years ago. And probably first day of school, I imagine,

I made the horrible mistake of saying math and was instantly corrected by some snotty 12-year-old. And actually, it's maths. Yeah, so it was very triggering when you spoke about it. And I was like, oh, I relate so hard. It's like you have been in the upside down to my experience. Yeah, definitely, definitely. So a lot of your observations in the States are the same observations that I made,

but in reverse when I moved to New Zealand. It's like being in the upside down in Stranger Things. And to be honest, it's a little bit scary. So I turned my attention back to the birds at the zoo. Specifically, the third and final flightless bird I'll meet on my trip. Right now, this zoo is looking after a kakapo. Kakapo are these giant green parrots that are also flightless. I guess you could liken them to the size of a really big owl. They're sort of a giant fluffball like owls are too. And they're the world's heaviest parrot, weighing up to nine pounds.

Oh, look at that. Ow. God, he's got sharp claws. Famously, one of them once had sex with the head of Stephen Fry's cameraman. He's getting a bit frisky. Ow. Ow. Do you think

he's actually attempting a sort of mating ritual? He is. Oh, he's lost. You are being shagged. Ow! Of course! Look, he's so happy. I'm sorry, but this is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. You are being shagged by a rare parrot. There are around 250 of these birds

left. That's up from 110 years ago. These things are slow breeders. 250 birds is hardly any birds. They're as rare as hand's teeth. Despite living in New Zealand most of my life, I've never met a kākāpō before. Most New Zealanders never will. Again, there's only 250 of them on the entire planet. The one I'm seeing today is having a check-up from the vet here, James Chatterton, because it's got a lung infection. This particular kākāpō is from the South Island. And because it's being treated here in the North Island, there's some quarantine rules in place.

There are some diseases up here that they don't have. One of the ways we protect kākāpō is to have them in really strict quarantine. So we're going to get changed into overalls and separate footwear and sterilise our hands before we go in. And that makes sure that we only send kākāpō home with the stuff they came up with. We step into a little quarantine zone where some overalls are hanging from a hook. We're going to keep our human clothes on the inside of these overalls and only kākāpō touch the outside of the overalls, right? And so it's like putting on a wetsuit. Just keep your hands on the inside.

Roha is the name of the kākāpō I'm about to meet. She's been here for a while, getting treatment each day. So Roha is a kākāpō that's been with us for nearly seven months. So Rohar normally lives on Pukinui, which is Anchor Island in Fiordland. She's got aspergillosis, so fungal pneumonia, which is a real nasty disease. It kills a lot of birds and has killed several kākāpō over the last few years. Rohar's probably the most severe case that's survived, though she's not cured yet. So she's seven months into treatment. They don't really like being here, especially, no one likes being in hospital, right?

But they're really tolerant, a real amazing species to work with, both in the wild and also from a veterinary point of view, because they're really enigmatic, but they're also really forgiving. Every day, Roja needs to have a nebulizer, a sort of steam treatment. A bird can't wear a face mask, so Roja sits in

what's like a little mini sauna. Now in our overalls, we go through into the room where Roja lives. There I meet Celine, a vet nurse. I'm just going to catch up Roja. She is in her enclosure. It's all specially prepared. We've got a nice padded floor for her because she's been flightless. She'll spend a lot of time mooching around on the ground and loads and loads of what we call browse. So lots of branches and fresh greenery that our horticulture and browse departments supply for us. So it all just makes a nice camouflage-y enclosure. So I'm going to go in and I've been a wuss at the moment. I've got my special neoprene sleeve. It's almost like a bit of wetsuit you're putting on.

So that's so the kākāpō's claws don't get you. I'm sick of being scratched up. Her scratches seem to take a long time to heal on me. And I'll just reach into her house because she's almost very predictably inside her little house that we've made for her. And she'll probably just step up on my arm and I'll just hold around her shoulders.

Good luck. Hope you don't get clawed. Celine disappears into a little room full of shrubbery and emerges with a giant parrot carefully clutched in her arms. A parrot making a very strange, very grumpy noise. Such a big, flightless bird. Yeah. Such a deep sort of grumble, isn't it? Yeah, they hear, you know, low frequencies. That's one of the ways they communicate, especially in the breeding season.

I'm just going to hang on to your head, madam. You do your thing. Don't let me get in the way. By now, Rohar is sitting up on Celine's arm, perched there quite happily, but still sounding very grumpy. It's a giant thing, a big old parrot, about the size of a fucking swan. And she gently eases him into his little mini sauna for his treatment. She's a really nice, gentle bird, and I think she's just learnt to just go with the flow a little bit with what we're doing. And like the kiwi and little penguin, the kākāpō also stinks. Bit of an acquired taste, perhaps, or bit of an acquired smell.

I think it smells like a really nice walk in the forest, that kind of smell you get when you walk amongst the trees. As I stare at the kākāpō, I'm just blown away by how green she is. And I think of the kiwi, which is brown. Green and brown. That's the colour of most New Zealand's native birds. There's no big flashy colours. And that's because back in the day, the only predators birds had were other birds. And so a bird's best defence was to blend into the forest. If you're a bird that was threatened by being eaten and you evolved in New Zealand, your strategy was to not move and to be camouflaged because the things that were trying

to get you responded to movement and you could see in colour. In most of the rest of the world, a lot of the predators are mammalian and they see in monochrome, so in black and white if you like, and they hunt by smell and often at night and so in other areas of the world you can get away with being colourful but what you mustn't be is if you're a bird is you mustn't smell and you must try and run away if things come after you and so that is one of the major problems then when mammalian predators are introduced to New Zealand is you have them hunting one way and the defence skills of the poor old native New Zealand birds was just not effective against this new predator threat.

I leave Roja to her little medical sauna, muttering away to herself. I feel lucky I got to see one of only 250 of these things that are left on the entire planet. This bird is 0.4% of the entire population of Kakapo left. This is a completely pointless statistic, but if Roja was a person, she would be 32 million people. My point is, I feel lucky to have met her and had her grumble right in front of me. Before I leave New Zealand, I head back to say bye to my tiny nieces. Come on Chewie, talk to me.

Some cockatiel noises. As well as having a very grumpy cockatiel, which they rescued from someone who didn't want it, my nieces are also big fans of New Zealand's native birds. My brother lives out of the big city and they often go camping in more secluded places than that. So my niece has seen a bunch of Kiwis in the wilds. I never have, so I want to know what the experience was like. I've driven a few hours north to visit, and we go on a little walk into the woods, or bush as we call it here in New Zealand. David, come on, you're coming. A neighbor is chopping a tree down with a chainsaw, so we head down a more secluded path.

What are kiwis like? I've never seen one in the wild before. What are they like? They are funny. Poking their bum out of a bush. Poking their bum out of the bush? Yeah. Kiwis do have big butts. Tiny heads and big butts.

So if you see them foraging away for bugs at night, all you see is their bums up in the air. They do have big butts, don't they? Yes. Okay, Sophie, I wanted to know whether you think we should replace the kiwi

with maybe another bird because the kiwi is so sort of useless. It doesn't fly, it doesn't really do anything. Do you think we should replace it? No. Why not? Because I like the kiwi and it's a native bird. What's so good about the kiwi? It's a kiwi and it doesn't fly so I like birds that don't fly. Yeah, I guess that is one thing, right? It's kind of unique to have something that can't fly, because most birds can fly. Okay, you've put forward some pretty good arguments for keeping the kiwi as our national symbol.

So what else does the kiwi have going for it? You say it's cute, it can't fly, and they poke their bums out. And that it's not in any other country. Yeah, it's just unique to us, hey? Yes. I've turned to my other niece with a microphone. What do you think of the kiwi? And she's actually physically run away from me.

You're running away from the mic. New Zealanders don't like podcasting. They don't like having a microphone shoved in their face. Don't you think that maybe if a bird's so useless that it can't survive on its own, we should maybe just let the kiwi go extinct? No way! It's had its day. It's had its time in the sun.

But if they can't survive on their own, maybe we should just stop helping them and just let them die out. But then one of our native birds would have died out. OK, we'll keep the kiwi for now, I guess. We'll let it survive. It's decided. We won't let the flightless kiwi bird die out and we'll keep it as the main symbol of New Zealand.

That red light means I'm recording. So everything you just said is recorded and now it's going to be broadcast out to millions and millions of people. No. You don't believe me? No, I don't. Why don't you believe millions of people. No. You don't believe me? No, I don't. Why don't you believe me? I often feel like you don't believe me. Do you not find me believable?

Not really. I love my nieces to bits and wish more humans were sometimes as sceptical as they are. As to what I've learnt from New Zealand's flightless birds, well, I've learnt that in New Zealand we've sort of undergone a reverse natural selection. Birds which could once fly are now entirely flightless birds? Well, I've learned that in New Zealand, we've sort of undergone the reverse natural selection. Birds which could once fly are now entirely flightless. The plump kiwi wanders the forest floor with useless vestigial wings. And our biggest parrot is famous for being, well, big. Its lumbering frame couldn't care less about flying. It's happiest on the ground. While America is all about confidence and a bit of peacocking, talking up how great things are and striving for perfection, in New

Zealand, being pathetic is kind of rewarded. Maybe not in the last hundred years or so, but definitely in the last 80 million. The more useless, the better. Wings? We don't need them. Smell? Let's be as stinky as possible. There's something sort of wonderful about that. And while our pathetic flightless birds are struggling, New Zealand's humans are rallying together to save them. And that's pretty great too. Summing up, my takeaway is that New Zealanders being pathetic is kind of our evolutionary strategy. It's deep in our DNA. And it's okay.

It's okay to be pathetic. Oh, wow. Is that? That's the theme of the episode today. Okay. For New Zealanders and for all of us. Anyone listening who's feeling a bit pathetic, I'm saying it's okay. Lean into it. Stay on that forest floor.

No, I can't. Listen, I'm an American and I just can't sign on to that. That's good. This is a test. I was just testing that you were still as American as when I left you. I sure am. And pathetic is not something you're born with. You can choose to not be that.

And I think that's a choice one ought to make because it's a bad feeling. That is probably is a fair argument and an accurate thing to point out. It's not necessarily in your DNA. See, you're like, oh, America's treated me bad. But really, you just went to New Zealand, got reintegrated into the pathetic nature of the country, come back, and then all of a sudden you get bit by a squirrel. You get COVID. You're extremely pathetic. No, it's true, right?

My theory plays out. I barely survived the trip back. It's been rough, Monica. It's been really, really rough. It was a bit of a culture shock going back. And coming back again, it's double shock. It's like I've been in a tumble dryer or something. That's how I feel. Yeah, you kind of feel like a bird with no home.

Although, I feel like because birds can fly, that I could see them being less attached to a home. Yeah, no, I like that. They've got a much bigger scope of where they can go, right? Yeah, literally anywhere is possible for them. The metaphor for the show just keeps being extended like it's sort of a throwaway name, but it's actually ended up being incredibly accurate. It's true. Do you have a favorite bird? Do you have a favorite one? I just have to ask this. Listen, I like birds. You like cooking them. You like cooking them for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Wait, chickens. I'm like kind of scared to say anything because I'm so ignorant. I should also say I get to make these documentaries and I have Wikipedia there. I've got books. I've got everything. So I get to sound really smart in my little pre-recorded bit, but I know nothing about anything. That's the whole thing. I'm so ignorant. Chickens are birds. I know. I know they're birds. I know they're birds, but they're flightless. No, that's the thing. No, they're not flightless. So that's actually

quite an incredible thing because I didn't clock this till recently. The ones that are bred for eating in factory farms, they're flightless because they're bred to be so full of meat and fat that they can't fly. If you go and meet a chicken before it's pushed down that line of being for food, they're roosting up in trees. They're taking off. They're having a great time. No, David, really? So I think you're going to be going to Hawaii soon. roosting up in trees they're taking off they're having a great time no david really so i think

you're going to be going to hawaii soon go to hawaii and find a wild chicken and chase it around your backyard and that chicken will fly up into a tree they'll roost in the trees and they'll come down to eat it can go that high yeah so the chickens that we see all the time in America and in New Zealand, the ones for food, they are so fat they can't fly. Okay, so our friends Ryan and Amy have chickens, but they're in like a coop and I don't see them flying places. No, those would be, again, not an expert, but I think that type of that breed of chicken, they've been bred for commercial life. Yeah, meat and sitting around all day. If you get a wild chicken, they're flapping those little wings around and they're taking off.

I don't think they fly far, though. They still fly short distances. Yeah, they won't migrate to New Zealand or anything. But they can get off the ground away from a dog or something. Wow. I didn't know that. Okay, that's good to know. I did think a good game show would be getting all of New Zealand's birds

to sort of fight all of America's, so you get like a kiwi to fight an eagle or something. Okay, well, we already know the eagle's going to win because you've described as pathetic. The season of TV wouldn't go on for very long at all. It was really amazing hanging out with everyone. Because zoos are often thought of as I think of being, and rightfully so, zoos are places that technically shouldn't exist.

Everything should be free. But this zoo did have this incredible wildlife recovery program. And it was kind of neat going behind the scenes because you're in the zoo and it's a really cool setup. But then you go behind the scenes and there's almost this other whole world at the zoo in New Zealand where it's just animal recovery. While I was there, someone had found a sea turtle and they brought it in and that was off to the operating theater. This operating theater was amazing because it was an operating theater for animals and so it had like a little table for like the turtle and everything was different sizes because they're operating on birds in there turtles they probably

bring horses in it was the craziest little operating theater i've ever seen wait in new zealand do they call hospitals operating theaters so in a hospital there will be an operating theater inside. Oh, okay. Yeah, in that specific area. Yeah. Okay, operating room. Yeah, operating room theater. But theater is nice. That makes it sound really fancy.

It sounds like you go to a show and watch people being operated on in the theater. What's your favorite bird? I never really answered, but I don't have one. I think chicken. I think you like chickens. Okay, no, that's not. I don't want that to go on record. The record is my favorite bird. I do like penguins. I like peacocks. Yeah. Peacocks are cool. I like hummingbirds. They're beautiful, aren't they? Yeah. I like a lot of birds.

There's almost too many to choose from. I recently got a book of Californian birds because when I go walking, I want to be able to identify them more. So I'm going to take my little book out with me so I can see what they are. But I think my favorite bird, there's a bird in New Zealand called the fantail, and they're probably overrated, but their tail fans out like a fan. Like a peacock? Like a peacock, but they're tiny. They'd be like the size of a sparrow, tiny little things, but they're really friendly. So when you're going for a walk in the forest,

a little fantail will find you and will just follow you along, like hopping from tree to tree, talking to you while you hike. And that's this really adorable, beautiful thing that I always love about New Zealand. Does it talk like a parrot talks? It doesn't talk to you. No, it's like little peeps. It'll be like, peep, peep, peep, peep, like that. Okay. And what color are they? It's like a beautiful browns and black and white. They've got like a little motley chest. They're just the cutest little thing around. And I think that's probably my favorite New Zealand bird. But is that your favorite bird of all time? Of all time?

No, I have to go into parrot territory when I go for favorite bird of all time. My dream bird, my dream parrot is an African gray, and they're the smartest parrot. You can teach them different words. They know what words mean. They can count. They're just the best bird on the planet. It feels like this is a really good time to talk about fudge oh fudge my little bird and my little budgie from new zealand yeah yeah i love fudge he

was my first pet parakeet i had him when i was about seven and he'd go everywhere with me he'd like sleep in the bed with me he'd go to school with me because I was homeschooled. So it would just be at home. Okay, that's a misdirect. It was. Oh, I love Fudge. Yeah, he got cancer and died. Poor little guy. I know.

That's so sad. And I tried to get you to express your feelings about that. And then you said he was dead to you. I haven't processed Fudge's death yet and sort of sealed off. I don't know if I'll ever be able to unseal those feelings. But you know, David, this is a lesson because if you had expressed your feelings to Fudge before he passed, you might not be so burdened with this. And this goes back to the notes. Another thing that America is much better at doing than New Zealand, by the way, is

talking about feelings and all these different sort of aspects of life. In New Zealand, we tend to seal things off. We don't talk about things. We're always talking about moving forward. You've got to move forward. You know, the past is in the past. Whereas in America also, even, you know, in the last hour, I'm remembering what America is like again. Like it's all about being open isn't it yeah it

is it's a real culture shock again 2023 is the year you're honest it's the year you're not selfish and it's the year that you're open with your feelings and you write me a note i'm willing like you threw that in there at the end i I'm willing to work on this. Obviously, I need to claw my way back to getting more American points. So for that reason alone, I will attempt those four things, Monica. I promise. Okay, great. I love that. And you obviously did not get more American today.

You got less. You're at zero. I'm back to zero. But that's okay. We have a lot more show. Yeah, we do. We're back an episode a week. Everything from rabies to trips to Florida.

There's going to be a lot of crazy happening. I can't wait to teach you things and for you to teach me more things, Monica Pad. I'm looking forward to it. Does anyone ever call you that, Monica Pad? No. I just did that then. What do you think? I'll? No. I just did that then. What do you think? I'll be honest.

I hated that. But I also liked it because I like when people give each other nicknames. I think that's very sweet. It means there's an intimacy. Absolutely. Monica Pad. Okay. But maybe, yeah.

It's not the best one. You don't want to be known as Pat? I could just feel like I'm back in middle school and like someone's calling me that as like a period Pat. Oh, no, I don't want that. I'll work on it. I'll work on another one. It just came out. It just came out of me, you know?

I know, which I liked. I liked that moment, but let's workshop it. All right. Well, feel better. Thank you. I'll see you in person very soon yes okay and you too rob bye guys bye