North Island Kaka
Nestor meridionalis
-40.7277, 175.632
Field Notes
Description:
An Endangered large olive brown parrot with a silvery grey head, endemic to NZ. It can measure up to 45cm in length and weighs around 400-500g. When viewed at a distance, or at rest, it appears relatively drab but up close and in flight the spectacular orange red face feathesr and bright red underbody and wings are visible. It has a large, sharp, overshot top beak, used for eating fruit, berries, seeds flowers and invertebrates, it also uses its tongue to collect honey nectar from the native NZ beech trees. It makes a 'ka-kaa' sound, for which it was named, as well as a more elongated screech. In flight its wings appear stubby and it flights while screeching, so even from a distance is easy to identify.
There are two species, North Island and South Island, separate by the geography of NZ but this species
Habitat:
It usually lives high in the bush canopy of the podocarp and beech forests of NZ's native forests. Nest sites are in hollowed out trees, well above the forest floor but they are still heaving predated by introduced mamamals (rats, stoats and weasels). For this reason, males often outnumber females about 5:1 where good predator control is not undertaken, due to the females being killed while on the nest. The 55ha Mt Bruce reserve where these birds live has a wild population of 200 but could support 600 adult birds.
Notes:
Pukaha Mt Bruce was established in 1962 as a reserve to breed and release endangered native birds into predator controlled environments. Kaka were absent from this bush for around 50 years and the first re-release of captive bred birds was made in the 1990's. Daily feeding, by rangers with appopriate food, of the wild birds is made and a dozen or more freely come down to the visitor centre for this feeding. Until recently all birds, including wild born chicks, were ringed but numbers are so great now that this part of the programme has been discontinued. All of these photos were taken of these wild birds visting the feeding station at Mt Bruce. It would definitely be the best place in NZ (and therefore the world) to see wild kaka up close and personal.
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