ArticleKiwi House

The kiwi-house in the zoo is a seemingly impossible compromise. The zoo itself is a regular establishment of the “9 to 5” type (the hours may vary a little bit but it makes no difference) while kiwi is a night bird, and it simply does not tolerate daylight. In other words, under normal circumstances no zoo visitors should ever be able to see the resident kiwis other than asleep. A kiwi zoo without kiwis would be completely preposterous – so the management had to find a solution, and whatever solution they might have contemplated had necessarily to include complete darkness. That is how the unique environment of the kiwi house was created: daylight lamps are on when it is nighttime outside, and as long as the zoo is open to the public, the area is pitch black (for the sake of the birds) but somehow covered by some sort of infrared light that allows the visitors to discern shapes and movement. Tourists are tourists, and they would take pictures whatever is happening around them while using flash inside the kiwi house is obviously an absolute taboo. It is not difficult to guess what pictures taken there could possibly look like – Malevich’s “Black Square” must be the most popular image in the Auckland area! At the same time, the picture is not completely black as some shapes and silhouettes can be distinguished – just enough to stir one’s imagination and perpetuate curiosity to make one try to figure out the kiwi.