General Description of the Huia

Of all our forest birds, the huia may be considered outstanding in point of view of bodily colour alone, quite apart from the remarkable glossy-black tail feathers with their white tips, and there were generally 12 feathers to a huia's tail.

The general bodily colour was dark blue merging to black, with an overall greenish sheen covering its body and head. One of the most beautiful features of the huia was the bright golden-orange wattles compressed beneath its lower jaw, these wattles being generally a little more than an inch across and of an ovalish shape. The different species were recognised by their beaks, the male's beak being straight and about three or more inches long, with the female's beak circular and about six inches long.

The male used its beak, short, thick at the base but tapering to a sharp point, to open up the huhu grub holes in the half-rotten trees to make it easy for its female to fish out the huhu with her slender curving beak. The huhu and other grubs and insects, berries and fern roots were the main diet of the huias. The female was a larger bird than its companion, its measurement being about 20 to 22 inches in length, while the male was 18 to 19 inches long.

In comparison, the huia would have been a shade smaller than the ordinary magpie.

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As I have spoken to many of our younger Maori generation about the huia bird, I was rather shocked to learn that some of them had no knowledge of the huia, so I have decided to make known through ‘Te Ao Hou’, the record of the huia as I have seen it in its natural surroundings.

Kia Ora,

T. V. Saunders.