Above the bushline in the sub-alpine zone of the Murchison Mountains near Lake Te Anau, two takahe trackers play a game of Petanque (using local ingredients!) while waiting for a helicopter pickup.
The Takahē (Porphyrio hochstetteri) is a flightless rail weighing up to 3kg. They were believed extinct until a dramatic rediscovery in 1948 by Geoffrey Orbell, in the Murchison Mountains of Fiordland. Endemic to New Zealand, a remnant population still survives in the subalpine grasslands of the Murchison Mountains. There are only 250 birds surviving today with an intensive conservation programme in action to save the takahe from extinction.