New Zealand parrots | Strigopidae

Nieuw-Zeelandse papegaaien | Loros de Nueva Zelanda

These three New Zealand species stand at the foot of the parrot tree: they split off before every other parrot in the world and have travelled eighty million years with the islands. The Kea lives above the treeline, eating roots, berries, insects and carrion, and investigates anything new with bill and foot — the habit that has made it unwelcome at ski huts and car parks. The Kaka stays in the forest, stripping bark to reach grubs and cutting pits into trunks to lick the sap that wells up. The Kakapo is the heaviest parrot in the world, cannot fly and is active at night; the male digs a bowl in the ground, sits in it and booms for hours at a pitch that carries for kilometres, and breeds only in the years when the rimu fruits heavily. The females raise the young alone; there is no pair.