Northland kiwi chick rescued from swimming pool filter

A routine check likely saved a kiwi chick from drowning after it got stuck in a swimming pool filter in Northland.

Amelia Boyce, the villa and estate manager of Paroa Bay Winery and Accommodation near Russell, noticed something in the swimming pool on February 21 during a routine check.

“I thought it was a hedgehog or a weka, and realised it was a baby kiwi.

“It was stuck in the pool filter ... it must have got in through the gaps.”

A video of the rescue mission has clocked up more than 4000 views on social media.

The clip shows Boyce and a work colleague taking off the filter cover, then Boyce reaches in and gently lifts the baby North Island brown kiwi out and wraps it in a towel.

She then places the chick in a cardboard box.

Boyce said the experience was “surreal”.

“Most of the guests ask staff if we’ve seen kiwi, and I say we can hear them at night, but to see them is pretty special.

“It felt like I was holding a kitten.

“It was like a feather, it felt very soft.”

Boyce said before handling the kiwi, she phoned Nik Minchin from Russell Landcare Trust for advice on what to do.

They put the box containing the chick into a dark garage for the day.

Then at dusk, they released him into a nesting box on site.

Amelia Boyce was surprised to find this kiwi chick stuck in the swimming pool filter.

The property has several nesting boxes on the property which provide safe, dry, and predator-free environments for nesting and breeding.

Minchin, the trustee and technical adviser, said he got advice from Kiwi Coast to “dry the kiwi up and keep it in a box”.

“If it was looking healthy and lively, they said release it in the afternoon.

“It was pretty fortunate; it only got a little wet and cold.

“The best thing to do was get it back into the wild as soon as possible.”

Minchin said the chick was about two weeks old, but it was too young to identify whether it was male or female.

He estimated there were more than 2000 kiwi on the Russell peninsula and kiwi populations were increasing 10% each year because of community efforts in predator control.

Unfortunately, that meant more kiwi were getting hit by cars and “stuck in more odd places”.

In 2024, Russell woman Tabatha Bird had an unexpected encounter when a kiwi entered her house via a cat flap then made its way through the kitchen into the shower.

Earlier this year, a couple staying with friends near Whangārei Heads were surprised after finding a kiwi in the sleepout they were staying in.

Minchin said kiwi had also been found in chicken coops and, more recently, alive and well under a parked car.

“They seem to show up everywhere now because of the sheer numbers.

“They’re not just in native bush where you might think.”

Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with finance, roading, and social issues.