A bumper berry harvest has weird flightless parrot in a rare mood for romance

In this photo provided by the Dept. of Conservation, New Zealand, Kakapo, Kohengi sits with her three eggs, on Anchor Island, Pukenui [AP Photo]

The world’s only flightless parrot species was once thought to be doomed by design. The kakapo is too heavy, too slow and, frankly, too delicious to survive around predators, and takes a shamelessly relaxed approach to reproduction.

But the nocturnal and reclusive New Zealand native bird ‘s fate is teetering toward survival after an unlikely conservation effort that has coaxed the population from 50 to more than 200 over three decades. This year, with a bumper crop of the strange parrot’s favorite berries prompting a rare enthusiasm for mating, those working to save the birds hope for a record number of chicks in February, which would move the kakapo closer to defying what was not long ago believed to be certain extinction.

Kakapo live on three tiny, remote islands off New Zealand’s southern coast and chances to see them in the wild are scarce. This breeding season has launched one of the birds to internet fame through a livestreamed video of her underground nest, where her chick was born yesterday.

The kakapo is a majestic creature that can live for 60 to 80 years. But they’re undoubtedly weird to look at.

Birds can weigh over 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds). They have owllike faces, whiskers, and mottled green, yellow and black plumage that mimics dappled light on the forest floor.

That’s where the flightless parrot lives, which has made its survival complicated.

“Kakapo also have a really strong scent,” said Deidre Vercoe, the operations manager for the Department of Conservation’s kakapo program. “They smell really musky and fruity — gorgeous smell.”

The pungent aroma was bad news for the parrots when humans arrived in New Zealand hundreds of years ago. The introduction of rats, dogs, cats and stoats, as well as hunting by people and destruction of native forest habitats, drove species of the country’s flourishing flightless birds — the kakapo among them — to near or complete extinction.

By 1974, no kakapo were known to exist. Conservationists kept looking, however, and in the late 1970s, a new population of the birds was discovered.

Reversing their fortunes hasn’t been simple.

One reason the kakapo population has grown slowly is that its breeding is, like everything about the birds, peculiar. Years or even decades can pass between successful clutches of eggs.

A breeding season only happens every two to four years, in response to bumper crops of fruit from the native rimu trees the parrots favor, which last happened in 2022. A huge food source is needed for chicks to survive but it’s not known exactly how adult birds become aware of an abundant harvest.

“They’re probably up there in the canopy assessing the fruiting,” said Vercoe. “When there’s a large crop developing, they somehow tune into that.”

That’s when things get really strange. Male kakapo position themselves in dug-out bowls in the ground and emit sonorous booming sounds followed by noises known as “chings,” which sound like the movement of rusty bedsprings.

The deep booms, which on clear nights can be heard across the forest, attract female kakapo to the bowls. Females can lay up to four eggs before raising their chicks alone. CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY, WELLINGTON, MDT/AP