THE AMAZING KEA

In the high southern alps of New Zealand lives a very special species of parrot. The kea, Nestor notabilis, is the world's only alpine parrot. Several years ago, I was lucky enough to see these birds. If you ever go to New Zealand and want to see kea, a guaranteed spot for them is the Viaduct Lookout in Arthur's Pass National Park.

Two kea perched on a slope at Viaduct Lookout

The kea is an extremely intelligent bird. In experiments, it has solved puzzles it has never seen before to get at food. It is also very curious. Its curiosity leads it to often peck at cars. In this process keas have been known to vandalise rental cars, so when seeing keas it can be good to leave someone to guard the car. While I was in New Zealand I saw a group of 4 keas hop on top of a moving caravan and start tearing at the roof! Its curiosity was once its downfall. Kea pecking at sheep and making them bleed lead to them being declared a pest species. A bounty was placed on kea and they were hunted almost to extinction. Now they are a protected species.

This kea was very curious about my camera!

In the cold climate of the Southern Alps, kea have had to adapt to eat a variety of foods. A variety of fruit, berries and plant matter are eaten, but due to the scarcity of food in the winter the kea has become one of the world's few meat-eating parrots. It uses its sharp feet and beak to dig up shearwater burrows. The shearwater chick inside is pulled out, killed and eaten. Strangely enough, New Zealand also has another meat-eating parrot: the Antipodes Island parakeet lives in the freezing Antipodes Island, thus also sometimes resorts to eating the chicks of storm-petrels.

A close up photo of the previous bird

As you can see, the kea is really an amazing bird. If you are in the South Island of New Zealand, try and check out the kea at Viaduct Lookout.