New Zealands Parrot

By Tiffany Pahl

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Kakapo's

Kakapo, (Strigops habroptilus), also called owl parrot, giant flightless nocturnal parrot (family Psittacidae) of New Zealand. With a face like an owl, a posture like a penguin, and a walk like a duck, the extraordinarily tame and gentle kakapo is one of strangest and rarest birds on Earth.

WRITTEN BY Sy Montgomery

Heaviest of the world's parrots, the 64-cm (25-inch) kakapo weighs up to 6 kg (13 pounds) and has moss-coloured green-and-brown plumage, a long, rounded tail, and a stout, blunt, pale yellow bill.

On its brownish gray legs, the parrot waddles long distances to feeding areas, where it chews plants for their juices and digs up rhizomes to crush them with its ridged bill.

Males construct pathways to excavated mating arenas known as leks, where they gather in traditional spots to call and display for females.

In a plate-sized depression often at the crest of a rocky knoll, the male inflates his chest like a bloated bullfrog, heaves his thorax, bobs his head, and releases a resonant boom like the sound made by blowing across the top of a large bottle.

The call lasts all night and carries for half a mile (0.8 km). Females nest in holes in the ground, where they rear two or three white, pear-shaped chicks alone.

habitat-and-islands

To learn more about this bird click herebritannica.com!