It’s bird bingo, he said, looking at the sheet.

I tried not to beat the ten-year-olds who were also keen.
You had to really listen.

And there they were.
Tūi, playing chase, fighting rivals:

blue-black, green glossy, white. 
Puffed up to double his size to impress a mate

who flapped off over trees. 
Puffed up to fight the kākā for sugar water,

but the kākā, all curved beak and red underwing, held his perch. 
A saddleback’s flash of chestnut:

akin to the huia, flashes swerving through trees.
At the top of the dam and over the suspension bridge,

we have the eye of God.
Walking under canopies, I see a kākā soar high, ka-aa.

Beneath mamaku: the feather of wings and the feather of ferns.
If you’re over fifty you can’t hear the rifleman, he said.

Even the noise of the stream sounds like chatter. 
A clear call; less a bell, more

the note of singer with perfect pitch.
I’d nearly cried seeing the film of the death of huia.

Then again, I nearly cried when I saw it – 
steadily eating grass, as if

the most natural thing in the world.  
Takahē, back from the dead:

royal blue, peacock blue, green;
a sharp red beak –

like watching a miracle. 
I have five, I said.

I have four. Oh, I forgot the tūi. 
But I counted the duck.

I found birds that were not on the sheet. 
There are too few of those to include, he said.

But we saw them anyway.