This lovely New Zealand Wood Pigeon Soft Toy also has authentic sound, recorded in the New Zealand forest.

The New Zealand Wood Pigeon or kererk
(Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae) is native to New Zealand.

Quite a large bird, compared to other forest birds, it eats mainly fruit, but will also eat leaves.  The Kereru was once hunted, but is now protected.  It suffers from considerable competition for fruit, particularly from the Australian brush-tailed possum, so has declined in numbers. 

The population of Kereru is influenced by the quantity of fruit available, as the bird only lays one egg.  If there is plentiful fruit they may lay 4 times a year, but if not, they may only lay once a year.

Kereru are important to the health of the native forest, as they are the only bird able to eat the large fruit of some of our native trees, thus spreading the tree seed later.  They are an important bird to have around when re-vegetating native forest.