A 9-year-old male buff weka has been left lost and lonely, after his female mate died during winter at the Department of Conservation's Stevensons Island breeding programme.
The weka has developed a reputation among Doc staff to rival that of Shakespeare's Romeo in a quest to find new love.
After his partner's death, the lonely male tried breaking up the island's four remaining breeding pairs; picking on the blokes and trying to woo the females away.
To try to solve the problem, he was moved to another island on Lake Wanaka - Mou Waho, 4km away - to start a new life.
However, Doc officers were stunned to discover less than 10 days later the bird was back on what he obviously regarded as his home island.
Unless he had hitched a ride on a passing boat, he must have swum from Mou Waho to the Peninsula, then tackled the second discipline in his 4km "love duathlon", an overland crossing, before taking to the water again for another swim to Stevensons Island.
Doc said he then "created havoc" on the island by incessantly pacing the wire of the female wekas' compound and calling out.
Rangers captured the weka and put him in the island's quarantine compound.
There are plans to transfer him to Pigeon Island on Lake Wakatipu, where Doc believes he will have a good chance of finding a mate.
Doc said the "strong and healthy bird with a determined attitude" was no stranger to island life, being one of the original importation from the Chatham Islands in 2000.
They were the first buff weka on the New Zealand mainland since 1920.
