Kakapo

The Kakapo may be the strangest parrot on Earth. It is the heaviest, with big males reaching roughly 4 kilograms, the only flightless one, the only nocturnal one, and the only one that breeds on a lek, where males gather to boom through the night from hilltop bowls. Cloaked in moss-green plumage finely barred with black and yellow, with an owl-like disc of fine feathers framing its face, it is superbly camouflaged among ferns and forest litter. Its old defense, freezing motionless when threatened, worked perfectly against the eagles it evolved with and catastrophically badly against the cats, stoats, and rats that people later brought to New Zealand.

Once found across the North, South, and Stewart Islands, the Kakapo collapsed to a few dozen birds by the 1990s. Today every single individual is named, rad-tagged, and monitored by New Zealand's Kakapo Recovery team, and the whole species lives on a handful of predator-free islands. Long-lived, possibly to 90 years or more, and slow to breed, it remains Critically Endangered. But its numbers have clawed back to around 250, making it one of conservation's most closely watched and oddly beloved survivors.

The Kakapo is unmistakable if you are lucky enough to see one: a very large, rotund, moss-green parrot with soft, owl-like plumage and a flat facial disc of fine feathers. Its wings are short and rounded and cannot power flight, used only for balance and to parachute down from trees. Because it is strictly nocturnal and now confined to closely guarded islands, almost nobody encounters one by chance. In practice it is detected by its booming and 'ching' calls, by its strong sweet-musty smell, or by the feeding sign it leaves on plants.

Male vs. female

Male and female Kakapo look broadly alike in color, both moss-green and mottled, but they differ in size and role. Males are noticeably larger and heavier, sometimes half again the weight of a female, and they are the ones that boom and display; females never boom and take no part in the lek. The size gap is one of the most pronounced of any parrot. In the hand, researchers also note the male's slightly broader head and heavier bill. Because the species is so rarely seen in the open, most people will only ever tell the sexes apart through the recovery program's detailed records rather than in the field.

Juveniles

Young Kakapo resemble adults in their green, mottled plumage but tend to look slightly duller and greyer, with a shorter tail and softer, fluffier feathering. Chicks hatch nearly naked and helpless in the nest hollow and are raised entirely by the female. Growth is slow compared with smaller parrots, and youngsters may stay near the nest and remain dependent for months after fledging. Under the recovery program many chicks are closely monitored and some are hand-reared when a mother cannot provide enough food, so a large share of the living population has been watched from the egg.

Breeding males produce one of the strangest sounds in the natural world. From a shallow bowl dug into a ridge or hilltop, a male inflates a large air sac in his chest and releases a deep, resonant boom, a low pulse felt almost as much as heard. He repeats it dozens of times, often for six or eight hours a night across weeks or months, and on a still night the booming can carry several kilometres. Because low frequencies travel far but are hard to locate, the male alternates his booming with a high, metallic ching that helps a female home in on his exact bowl.

Away from the breeding 'boom season' the Kakapo is mostly quiet. When handled or alarmed it may give a harsh skraark or a range of grunts, squeals, and duck-like calls. There is no cheerful daytime song here; the Kakapo's voice is the eerie nighttime boom, and hearing it in the wild is a privilege granted to very few people.

Before people arrived, the Kakapo was widespread through the native forests and scrublands of New Zealand's North Island, South Island, and Stewart Island. Subfossil bones show it once ranged from coast to subalpine shrubland. The arrival of Polynesian and then European settlers, along with dogs, cats, rats, and mustelids, wiped it out across almost the entire mainland within a few centuries.

Today the entire species lives on a small number of intensively managed, predator-free islands, including Whenua Hou (Codfish Island) off Stewart Island and Anchor Island in Fiordland. These islands are chosen for having no introduced mammal predators and enough native forest, especially rimu, to support breeding. Access is tightly restricted, and there is currently no wild mainland population that the public can visit.

The Kakapo is entirely herbivorous and remarkably varied in what it eats: fruits, seeds, nuts, leaves, stems, shoots, roots, bark, moss, and fern fronds all feature depending on the season. It forages mostly on the ground but will climb high into trees using its strong legs and beak, then parachute or clamber back down. A distinctive feeding sign is the neat crescent of chewed, fibrous plant material it leaves behind after sucking out the juices and nutrients, sometimes called 'chews' or 'browse sign'.

The single most important food is the fruit of the rimu, a native conifer. Rimu masts only every few years, and the abundance of its ripening fruit appears to be the trigger that switches on Kakapo breeding. In heavy rimu years females can raise chicks successfully; in poor years they may not nest at all. Managers even supplement birds with carefully formulated food to keep them in condition and, where possible, encourage breeding.

The Kakapo has a lek breeding system found in no other parrot. Males compete for the best bowl-shaped display arenas on ridgelines, boom for weeks to attract females, and then contribute nothing further; there is no pair bond and no male care. A female that visits and mates then travels back to her own territory to nest and raise the young entirely alone.

She nests on the ground in a natural cavity, a hollow log, a cavity among tree roots, or under dense vegetation, laying one to four eggs. Incubation and chick-rearing fall entirely to her, which means she must leave the eggs or chicks unattended each night while she forages, a vulnerability that made mammalian predators so devastating. Breeding is tied to mast fruiting and so happens only every few years, and the combination of rare nesting, ground nests, and lone females is exactly why the species recovers so slowly and needs such intensive help.

You cannot attract a Kakapo to a backyard, and you cannot simply go and find one; the entire population lives on strictly protected, predator-free islands that are closed to casual visitors. Seeing or hearing one in person is genuinely rare. Here is the honest picture of where and how people do encounter Kakapo, and how to support the birds if you care about them.

• Understand the access rules first: the managed islands such as Whenua Hou (Codfish Island) and Anchor Island are not open to the general public, and landings are limited to permitted conservation staff and researchers.
• Watch for rare public advocacy birds. Over the years New Zealand's Department of Conservation has occasionally placed an individual Kakapo, such as the famous Sirocco, on temporary public display at sanctuaries like Zealandia or Orokonui Ecosanctuary; these events are announced ahead of time.
• Visit a fenced mainland ecosanctuary, such as Zealandia in Wellington or Orokonui near Dunedin, to see the predator-free habitat and other rare NZ birds, and to catch any Kakapo-related events or displays.
• Plan around 'boom season'. Kakapo breeding tracks the periodic masting of rimu, so any special viewing or advocacy activity is far more likely in a heavy fruiting year; follow Kakapo Recovery news to know when one is happening.
• Support the birds directly through Kakapo Recovery and the Department of Conservation, whose 'adopt a Kakapo' and donation programs fund the monitoring, supplementary feeding, and disease management the population depends on.
• See them responsibly online: Kakapo Recovery and DOC share verified livestreams, nest cameras, and updates in breeding years, which is the way most people will ever watch a Kakapo behaving naturally.

• Kea: New Zealand alpine parrot, but able to fly and active by day, with olive plumage and orange underwings
• Kaka: Forest parrot of New Zealand, related but smaller, browner, and a strong flier