Printing Piopio

I finished this guy last weekend, in the middle of a bathroom renovation at work and assorted upheaval. Piopios were small New Zealand songbirds. There were two slightly different kinds, one for the North Island and one for the South. The 19th century New Zealand naturalist Walter Buller described their calls as being the most beautiful of any New Zealand bird. The could even mimic the calls of other birds. You can learn more about them here and here.

I think he came out quite nice. New Zealand, as an isolated island nation, was host to huge numbers of exotic endemic species of birds, who were able to enjoy life almost predator free. Over 65 million years New Zealand became a land dominated by birds. When Captain James Cook arrived in the eighteenth century he described the sound of their calls as deafening.