Our Feathered Friends

“New Zealand’s island ecology – from the kauri trees to the kiwi, the country’s emblematic bird – is unique,” writes The Independent on Sunday’s Ben Ross. “Twenty years ago, Douglas Adams – the man behind the comedy science-fiction epic The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – arrived with naturalist Mark Carwardine. The writer was intrigued by the peculiarities of the birdlife. With no cats, dogs, ferrets, or other mammalian land predators, there was little for the birds to fear, so many lost the use of their wings. Douglas Adams suffered a fatal heart attack in 2001, aged just 49. But his affection and concern for New Zealand’s strange wildlife is celebrated in the Last Chance to See television series currently being broadcast on the UK’s BBC2, in which Carwardine and Stephen Fry take up the kakapo’s tale.”