Project Takahē

Television (Full Length Episode) – 1981

Who can ever forget the sight of that takahē, fossicking for food in mid winter, popping its head up to look towards the camera with a huge lump of snow perched on top?
– Robert Boyd-Bell on this documentary, in his book New Zealand Television: The First 25 Years, page 192

Much of it [Fiordland] is still unexplored. One can imagine coming face to face with some strange creature...and this is exactly what happened: a weird bird returned from the past.
– Narrator Peter Hayden

Against the snow, the colours looked brilliant: the green and blue feathers, scarlet beak and bright pink legs. The birds seemed light giant tropical parrots, and strangely out of place in the vast, bleak environment ... they didn't seem at all worried by the presence of our film crew as long as we moved slowly and didn't do anything to alarm them.
– Rod Morris and Hal Smith on filming for Project Takahē, in 1988 book Wild South: Saving New Zealand’s Endangered Birds, page 80