Long arm of law rescues ruru

Bird expert Bill Smith makes friends with the baby morepork. Picture / Christine Cornege

A police officer rescued a storm-drenched baby morepork from the side of the road before making a bed for it at the Hamilton police station.

Constable Richard Collier almost ran over the native ruru in bad weather while on his way to an ATM machine in the Chartwell suburb of the city last night.

He checked the bird and found it dishevelled and likely to have been blown from its perch in the storm.

"Once we got it to the station we made a bed for it and tried to get it something to eat but it was a little bit stressed and we set about trying to find it a new home."

Help was on hand from bird rehabilitator Bill Smith, who runs the Aviation Wildlife Rehabilitation Trust. He arrived at the central city police station yesterday morning to collect the bird.

Mr Smith estimated the chick was about three weeks old and said it would be kept in a rehabilitation facility run from his home, where it would be fed insects and pieces of mice and chicken until it was about two months old.

Mr Collier would then be invited to release it back into one of the gullies in Chartwell, near where it was found.