do duty for a top-knot and look at me as much as to say ‘What the dickens was that noise?’ You may go for days without seeing a single bird, for Kea hunting is rather a lottery, but I would keep going where they had been seen at the sheep, and I was bound to get them in the long run. The Kea-hunter’s life is not all ‘beer and skittles,’ still, with all the hardships through getting caught in fog or snow on the tops, and so forth, there is something fascinating about it.
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Kea country: In pursuit of the Kea in winter.
When once you have got a taste of the free life, fresh air, and sunshine of a kind which is only found amongst the mountains, you can never forget it, and at times the longing to climb once again is almost irresistible.”
As Kea hunting is taken up by men all over the Kea country, and each man has to find out the most successful method of killing the birds, there were and are many different ways employed. The commonest method is by shooting them with a shot gun, and as the birds are extremely tame and inquisitive it is not usually very difficult to get near them once they are in view.
