Ol’ blue eyes, King of the Shags

Believed to be one of the world’s rarest seabirds, the King Shag has big pink feet and spectacular eye makeup, which is bright iridescent blue during the mating season.

There are only about 600 of these remarkable birds in the world, and they all live in the outer islands of the Marlborough Sounds.

According to Maori oral history, a King shag called Te Kawau-a-Toru helped the great Polynesian nagivator Kupe to survey the new land of Aotearoa.