New Zealand's own parrot goes to town

A month ago I was jogging up the top of Highbury (the Wellington suburb), near Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, when I noticed a couple of kaka noisily having a bunch of fun in a tree in someone's garden. How cool is that, I thought, I bet you Wellington is the only city where you can see a kaka in someone's section. Having noticed the boom in the tui population already, I pondered how cool it might be if kaka would successfully repopulate what was once its rightful habitat. But then, I figured it was no miracle given that these kaka were so close to the sanctuary.

But the very next day I was busy cutting up some wood outside my sleepout when I heard the same noise, and looked up to see a kaka fly past. And this is in Kelburn, much further from the sanctuary than Highbury. It was very cool to see this big bird swoop across the sky in front of me, with its noisy guffaw, New Zealand's very own native parrot.

However I didn't see a kaka again, although I was rather preoccupied in this time, with getting engaged and helping my fiancee pack for America, then spending a week in Taranaki. And I wasn't back in Kelburn a week before I was treated to the sight of not one, not two, but at least four kaka flying across the top of the Aro Valley from the Botanical Gardens, making their way in the direction of the wildlife sanctuary. And before I saw them I'd already recognised their cheeky & flirtatious whit-whio.

Now when I noticed the tui population boom, I anticipated an article that appeared in the Dominion Post on the subject. So I got online and did a google search to see if anybody had written about the kaka, and I came across a couple of images on Flickr; one of a kaka feeding from an exotic tree in the Botanical Gardens, taken November 2008, and another of a kaka living it up at a party in what looks like Higbury, December 2008. Both birds have tags on their legs, so it's not as if the population is booming wildly, but it's still cool we can see these beautiful birds around our city.


Kaka fees from an exotic tree at Botanical Gardens, Wellington


Kaka takes a nibble at Highbury party, Wellington


Kaka enjoys the view from the balcony, Higbury, Wellington