Giant Kiwi – Auckland Airport Kiwi Hotel

That trajectory – factory roof, museum, hotel roof – is the most complete life history of any Kiwi Bacon bird this catalogue has traced. The Wellington one is known from a single 1966 photograph; the Palmerston North one from the day it was craned into place in 1970; the Hamilton one only from a mention in a list. This one has an address, a chain of custody and a business named after it.

It also sharpens a question the sibling records raise. Those birds are documented as a four-strong national programme naming Wellington, Auckland and Hamilton. A Kingsland factory bird would plausibly be the Auckland one – but a fifth kiwi at Orana Wildlife Park near Christchurch, also recorded as a Kiwi Bacon bird, does not fit the count. The programme appears to have been larger or longer-running than the four-bird account allows, and this catalogue reports that rather than forcing the numbers.

The kiwi is on a working hotel roof, visible from the ground.