Courting Kiwis

Prince William, 27, has officially opened the new $80.7 million Supreme Court building on Lambton Quay in Wellington, now the country’s highest court of appeal. Architects Warren and Mahoney modelled the courtroom on a kauri cone and designed it in accordance with sustainable design policies. On the second day of Prince William’s first official visit overseas, he finally met a local who didn’t want to meet him on the 800ha Kapiti Island reserve. In his case it was a drowsy Little Spotted Kiwi, rooted out of its undergrowth habitat and nocturnal routine the previous evening and kept in a box to be introduced to the prince on his visit to the astonishingly beautiful Kapiti Island reserve. The prince’s kiwi, about the size of a small chicken, is the smallest of the six sub-species of the bird and it deployed its defences against the unwelcome intrusion of visitors by unleashing a small shower of feathers, a move designed to distract attention. It is a tactic royals could perhaps consider deploying for themselves. As it was, the prince, gingerly holding the kiwi upside down, merely turned to the accompanying flock of press photographers and beamed knowingly: “At last — me with a kiwi bird.”