NZ's native birds transformed into Lego

Image / Thomas Poulsom

Native New Zealand birds could soon be released as official Lego kits.

A British bird lover is building models of kiwi and kakapo and hopes to persuade the famous toy company to mass-produce them.

Thomas Poulsom is planning to build a series of seven birds for each continent.

He's already created models of the kiwi and kakapo, as well as other birds from the Southern Hemisphere including the kookaburra.

He has submitted his collection to a website for new Lego ideas where - provided he gets 10,000 supporters - Lego will consider making it an official product.

"In an ideal world, I would like each bird to be sold separately with a little scene/perch and a little plaque with information about the specific bird," Mr Poulsom, of Bristol in England, says on the site.

"I think it would be a bonus to have a soundbrick somewhere in the build with the relevant birds' song or call."

Some of the birds are true to life-size, but some of the larger ones, like the endangered New Zealand parrot, kakapo, would mean Poulsom would run out of Lego.

"If I was to have enough Lego then I would actually like to build them life-size," Mr Poulsom told Radio New Zealand today.

"The kiwi took a couple of days to perfect. The first day I managed to get the shape correct. After that I filled in the details and made sure I was happy with it."

The professional tree surgeon said he's been a Lego-lover all his life.

The idea to make tiny block replicas of birds came while working outside one day and a robin redbreast landed on his fork while digging.

"That was the inspiration behind the project," he said.

"The robin was the first bird that I built and it's kind of snowballed from there really."