Andrew Burt is ready for an adventure. He’s 14 and he’s been chosen to assist Mr Richard Henry who has been made Chief Conservator at Dusky Sound in Fiordland NZ.

Andrew is looking forward to tracking down and catching Kākāpō, and Southern Brown Kiwi, (or Roa as Richard Henry called them). They plan to move as many as they can away from predators on the mainland to a safe place called Resolution Island.

There is a lot Andrew didn’t know about, and he is quickly homesick. There’s the millions of biting sandflies who feast on him all day. There is a house to build (a whole house!) and a vegie garden to dig and grow. He hates gardening! A boathouse is on the list, along with mapping the area, and steps to dig down to the waterline.

Cages need to be made, and their beloved canine companion Lassie hasn’t worked out as well as planned. Will they ever catch, cage and save any birds?

Mail and supplies come every three months by boat, and Andrew loves reading letters from his family. Keen to make them proud, he perseveres with Mr Henry’s training, and he knows he’ll have a lot of skills to share when he returns home.

Finally, the time for catching is here. A new dog has been trained for the job of finding the birds, and Andrew and Mr Henry take turns racing to the spot in the bush where Foxy is barking and her bell ringing.

Using a dog to find these ground birds is a fine line between bailing them up for capture and frightening or hurting them, so Andrew has to be fast – but he loves the chase!

Then disaster strikes. They have moved hundreds of birds over nearly two years in Dusky Sound. Is it all for nothing?

Kākāpō Keeper is based around the real Richard Henry and one of his assistants Andrew Burt. It’s 1894, and they begin with a small boat laid low in the water with supplies and nothing else, deep in Dusky Sound, Fiordland, NZ.

The silence is the first thing to get used to for 14 yr old Andrew, used to a busy, noisy household at home in Dunedin. They have the task of capturing the increasingly rare Kākāpō and Kiwi and moving them to a safer island. Andrew tells the story in diary format with detailed pencil sketches of the birds and animals they discover:

Date: Mid July, 1894

Bird Tally: 0

Injuries Tally: 4

At first Andrew wonders why he ever agreed to the job, but he toughens up along the way, getting used to the quiet, the sandflies, rats, penguin eggs, and tinned butter. This story allows us to experience Dusky Sound as it was in the late 1890’s, as they endeavoured to save some of our native birds.

Other birds visit them, such as the cheeky Piopio (now extinct), also sharing something now gone from New Zealander’s lives.

I hadn’t heard of Richard Henry and his work, but it was crucial to later missions to save our beloved Kākāpō and other native birds. Included in the books are photos of the house that was built, their canine assistant, actual documents, gear lists and maps, bringing this historical story based on fact even closer to the reader.

Author – Gay Buckingham

Illustrator – Dahl Design

Age – 8+

Find Teacher’s Notes here

Read another great kiwi mix of fiction and non-fiction (Click on the Cover)

(2021, Onetree House, NZ Native Birds, New Zealand, South Island, Fiordland, The Sounds, Dusky Sound, Pigeon Island, Resolution Island, Historical, Humour, Animals, Dogs, Tracking, Kākāpō, Kiwi, Weka, Factual, Based on Truth, Animal Sketches, Conservation, Protection, Stoats, Ferrets, Rats, Weasels, Kiore, Mustelids, Introduced Pests, Introduced Predators, Adventure)