Tūī with kōwhai in its beak

A gift from the bush

The offering

Imagine walking through the bush one spring morning when a tūī lands on a branch just in front of you, close enough that you could almost reach out and touch it.

It has a single yellow kōwhai flower in its beak.

It doesn’t eat it, and it doesn’t fly away. It just sits there, holding the flower, turning its head to look at you with one bright eye, as though it has come specifically to show you this.

Of course, it hasn’t. It’s a tūī, and it’s simply busy being a tūī. But in that moment, standing in the dappled light with the bird and the flower and the green all around you, it’s hard not to feel you’ve been given something.

The artwork

This is the most lush and atmospheric of our tūī designs. The bird perches on a branch on the right, facing left, a slender kōwhai flower held delicately in its curved bill. Its white throat tufts curl at its neck, and its feathers are layered richly across the back and wing.

All around, the bush closes in: broad leaves on the left, ferns in the foreground, hanging blossoms in the upper corners, and a soft, misty background suggesting deeper forest beyond. The engraving uses a wide range of warm tones, from deep brown in the bird to pale cream in the background, which gives the whole scene a hazy, golden, early-morning feel.

On the warm wood with its rounded corners, the effect is like an old, treasured illustration from a well-loved book.