New Zealand’s Kakapo parrot features some of the extremes of the bird world. It‘s the only parrot that is both nocturnal and flightless, and it’s also the heaviest parrot in the world. The Kakapo tips the scales at a solid 2.5 kilograms. One of the rarest parrots with 127 individuals, it is also the only parrot in the world with a ‘lek’ breeding system.
New Zealand has three species of large parrot, and four species of the smaller, parakeet or kakariki. The three endemic, (only found here), parrots are the Kakapo, the Kea, and the Kaka.
Kakapo - evolution in isolation
Bird species in Aotearoa (New Zealand), evolved in isolation for millions of years after the land-mass split from Gondwanaland. Isolation included no mammals and as a result many New Zealand birds, such as the Kakapo, Kiwi, Takahe, and Moa, lost the ability to fly. Many like the Kakapo and Kiwi also became nocturnal to avoid the predators that were more likely to come from the sky.
The Kakapo, (Strigops habroptilus), is one of the oldest known parrot lineages and has no other close relatives in its family. Before human settlement, Kakapo occurred throughout New Zealand, but are now critically endangered and confined to island sanctuaries.
Although they still have large wings, the Kakapo mainly uses these for balance as it climbs through tree branches to its preferred food, the fruit of the rimu tree. Kakapo are forest dwellers, and climb trees to forage or take shelter. They are agile and fast at walking and running on the ground, and brilliantly camouflaged in moss-green plumage. Nests are made in burrows in the ground, and usually 2-3 eggs are laid and incubated solely by the female.
The Kakapo’s future as a species, is now dependent on the efforts of the Kakapo Recovery Team in New Zealand, led by the Department of Conservation. For more information on Kakapo conservation, have a look at Kakapo Recovery.
Playful Kea and Kaka
New Zealand’s remaining large parrots, the Kea and Kaka, are from the family Nestor, that is another ancient and separate parrot lineage, that evolved in isolation. Unlike the Kakapo, both these parrots are strong fliers, and most active during the day.
The Kaka and Kea measure about 45 - 46 cm long, and weigh 500 - 800 gm with the males of the species slightly larger than the female and with a larger beak. The Kea is a dark forest green with slightly paler green on the underparts, while the Kaka, is brown with crimson underparts, a silver-grey crown and a yellow ear-patch. Both parrots have stunning red and yellow underwing patches that appear as a red orange flash in flight. They are known for their playful, intelligent and engaging behaviour and are largely unafraid of humans.
Alpine zone parrot
The Kea, (Nestor notabilis), is an alpine zone parrot only found in the South Island of New Zealand, and mainly in the mountains and montane forests along the Southern Alps. The Kea is omnivorous, meaning it eats just about anything, and when not feeding on native fruit and nectar, is known to forage in dumps for “delicacies”. It also has a reputation for curiosity, and is infamous for exploring the rubber trim on vehicle windscreens and bolts on buildings. The Kea, like the Kakapo, nests in burrows on the ground. In the alpine zone, this may mean a stone-lined crevice in a large rocky outcrop near the snow line. Kea are most visible to visitors at Arthur’s Pass, Mt Cook Village, and Franz Josef Glacier in the South Island.
Rainforest parrot
Kaka (Nestor meridionalis), are distributed widely in forests of both the North and South Island of New Zealand, as well as on Stewart Island. They feed mainly on native fruits, nectar, and cones, but in areas near cities and towns, such as Auckland, they also visit suburban gardens, golf courses and city parks, for citrus, pine, and tropical fruits when seasonal native food sources are in short supply.
Kaka nest in large native rainforest trees, such as the puriri, rimu, and tawa. They usually raise 3 to 5 chicks, and fledglings stay with their parents for the following four to five months. A great place to see Kaka in New Zealand, is the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust’s sanctuary, “Southern Enclosure”, south of Cambridge in the Waikato, (North Island); or around the town of Oban and Ulva Island on Stewart Island, (at the southern end of the South Island).
Both the Kea and Kaka are endangered, and the most significant threat is from introduced mammalian pests, such as the stoat, ferret, rat, cat and possum. They thrive best where intensive pest management programmes are carried out to reduce these pests and protect nesting birds from predation.
Kakariki parakeets
The ‘Cyanoramphus’ family of parakeets, or Kakariki, as they are known in New Zealand, are much more recent arrivals having evolved from ancestors that dispersed across the Pacific only half a million years ago.
These small, bright green parakeets, have adapted to a wide range of habitats around New Zealand, from the alpine zone to the most southerly, cold and wind-swept Antipodes Island, home of our ground dwelling Antipodes Island Kakariki/parakeet and the smaller, Reischeks Kakariki/parakeet.
In the North Island, the Red-crowned and Yellow-crowned Kakariki sparsely inhabit forests of the central North Island. Further north they have largely disappeared with the growth of civilisation, but have been reintroduced to some mainland and island sanctuaries since the 1980s.
In the South Island, the rare and endangered, Orange-fronted Kakariki, inhabits the beech forests of the alpine zone. It’s survival is again largely dependent on island recovery programmes focusing on intensive pest control.
References
Heather and Robinson 2006, Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand, Viking Press.
See also; Phylogenetic Origins of New Zealand's Parrots
