Eighteen of the birds were released in the Lake Whakatipu Waimāori valley, an alpine area of New Zealand’s South Island last week, on to slopes they had not been seen roaming for about 100 years.

“Very broad and bold.” Front-on, their bodies can appear almost perfectly spherical – coupled with the blue-green plumage, they look like a model planet Earth perched atop two long, bright red legs.

The birds had been formally declared extinct in 1898, their already-reduced population devastated by the arrival of European settlers’ animal companions: stoats, cats, ferrets and rats.

As trapping efforts have expanded, rare species are being re-introduced outside sanctuary fences: last year kiwi, the national birds, were reintroduced to wild spaces on the outskirts of the city for the first time in generations.

The release on Ngāi Tahu land is an attempt to establish the country’s third wild takahē population – and close collaboration between the government and the Indigenous tribe who will host them.

O’Regan’s father was a keen conservationist, and after a South Island doctor spotted the birds in the Murchison mountains, he attended the second expedition to find them in 1949 – with his young son in tow.

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