We had some wonderful stories, photos and videos from some very passionate people who love Aotearoa and want to help save its wildlife and wild places – tino pai!.
This story is from 7 year old Ina, one of our runners up.
My name is Ina and I am 7 years old. I am lucky because I live in Golden Bay and it is a beautiful place with nice beaches and lots of bush. I love going for big walks in the bush and in the Cob Valley, we go camping there and we saw whio in the stream and heard kiwi at night. We need to look after the streams and keep the water clean and look after these awesome places so that other people can see them.
My Brother Miro watching a Robin
We really need to look after our tree’s so the birds can keep living in the bush and be happy, so we need to trap all the rats and stoats and possums.
I really love birds; they are my favourite animal. Last spring there was a big storm, and lots of trees fell over and birds’ nests got blown out of the tree tops. After the storm I found a baby tui laying on the path it’s 3 brothers and sisters were dead and the parents were gone. I took it home and feed it sugar water. I had to feed it every two hours even at night, it had a broken wing.
Ina feeding Sunny with little sister Olea
I named it Sunny and took it to Natureland Park in Nelson, because you are not allowed to keep native birds as pets. They look after it and it lives in a big aviary. We can visit Sunny the tui, it is six months old now and started to sing. We still don’t know if it’s a he or she, but I think Sunny is happy that I saved him? her?
Ina reading to Tui
My aunty works in a country where there is a war, and she looks after kids there, everything round them is broken and they have to live in really bad broken concrete buildings and they can’t go and see any nature. I wish they could come here one day and see all the beautiful nature of New Zealand. If we look after our nature, then maybe one day they can.
Thank you for reading my story.
