Breeding
Kākāpō don’t breed every year – that depends on whether there’s enough rimu fruit around for them to eat. But when they do breed, they do it different to most! Find out about the kākāpō’s unique courtship!
The kākāpō ‘boom’ and ‘ching’
In the breeding season, the male kākāpō can inflate like a balloon and emit a low ‘sonic’ boom which, in mountainous terrain, can be heard up to five kilometres away.
Listen to the Kākāpō Boom
Breeding activity usually starts in about December, when male kākāpō take to prominent ridges, rocks or hilltops with low-growing vegetation and begin a courtship competition for female attention. This is known as ‘lek’ breeding, and is not known from any other parrot species in the world – or from any other New Zealand bird.
From its prominent bowl site, each bird inflates a thoracic air sac and emits a deep resonant non-directional ‘boom’ from its swollen body, announcing to any females in the area that he is ready to mate. After 20-30 booms they then make a high-pitched metallic call, or ‘ching’.
Listen to the Kākāpō Ching
This pinpoints the male’s position, to direct the females to him. The booming and chinging serenade can last for eight hours without break, every night for 2-3 months in the breeding seasons when nesting occurs.
The males compete against each other, and can release thousands of ‘booms’ a night.
Each bird also forms a network of tracks radiating from a bowl-like depression in the earth, from which it is based. This is known as a ‘track and bowl’ system, which is also unique among parrot species of the world.
Kākāpō nesting
The female kākāpō lays between one and four eggs (about the size of a hen’s egg), which hatch after about 30 days. As a solo parent, the female has to leave the nest at night in search of food, leaving the eggs or chicks alone. The chicks will typically fledge, or leave the nest, after about ten weeks. However, the mother may keep feeding the chicks for up to six months.
Feeding
Kākāpō Diet
What do kākāpō like to eat? Find out about their special diet.
Kākāpō favourite foods
Rimu berries
The traditional diet of kākāpō is strictly herbivorous, comes from a variety of native plants and includes:
- the fruits
- seeds
- bark
- bulbs
- leaves
- stems and
- roots
When key food species are abundant, such as the fruit of rimu trees, the kākāpō will feed almost exclusively on their fruit.
Supplements
These days, the kākāpō diet is boosted with a special pellet, which is part of a Supplementary Feeding Programme provided to keep the birds in good reproductive condition, and help produce more eggs in breeding season. During breeding, the pellets will also help mothers raise their chicks if rimu fruit is in short supply.
How kākāpō eat
One of the most distinctive signs of kākāpō feeding are small crescent-shaped ‘chews’, often still attached to a plant. Like rabbits, kākāpō often browse tough foliage by passing it through their bill from bottom to top, using their feet to pull it through. This process sucks all the nutrients out of the foliage, leaving a little ball of fibrous material hanging off the plant.
This fibre bleaches in the sun and is very distinctive kākāpō ‘sign’.
Getting around
How Kākāpō Get Around
The kākāpō is a big bird that can’t fly. Find out how this mysterious “parrot of the night” travels.
Walking and Climbing
The kākāpō is the heavyweight champion of the parrot world; smaller females typically weighing 1.4kg, and males 2.2kg. Fat reserves of a kilogram or more can be added prior to a breeding season.
It is thought that, many hundreds of thousands of years ago, the kākāpō was probably a typical, lightweight parrot that flew through the air to travel and gather its food.
But the process of evolution without the presence and effect of mammals in New Zealand saw the bird give away its flying skills, put on weight, and become a good hiker and climber instead, with powerful claws.
Running
Kākāpō also have thighs typical of New Zealand’s more famous All Black rugby forwards, allowing them to walk several kilometres at a time, and to turn on a fair burst of speed as well.
Their wings are still large, but now have little more use than to slow it down when it leaps from the top of low trees and help kākāpō maintain their balance while running or climbing.
Behaviour
Kākāpō Behaviour
Since it’s such a unique parrot, it goes without saying that, the kākāpō doesn’t act like any other! Learn about how it behaves.
Alone in the night
The kākāpō is best described as a midnight rambler, spending most of its life sleeping during the day and wandering alone through the forest at night.
Kākāpō are solitary creatures. They gather only to breed, and the females are left to raise their chicks alone. Typically, each bird keeps to itself during the day, tucked up in a roost on the ground or in a tree, and venturing out at night to feed.
The kākāpō ‘skraark’
Kākāpō do give themselves away by their calls, however. This includes, most commonly, a loud screeching or “skraark”.
Listen to the kākāpō skraark
Keeping still
Another peculiar habit of the kākāpō is to freeze when disturbed, keeping absolutely still and hoping to blend into the background. Most animals have evolved more useful forms of defence, such as taking flight; but the kākāpō obviously did not need this behaviour in the days when New Zealand’s only predators were avian, such as Haast’s eagle (Harpagornis moorei).
Kākāpō personality
But when it comes to behaviour, not all kākāpō are the same. Staff get to know some birds well, such as the young chicks raised in captivity, and find that each has its own personality. Some are friendly, others are grumpy, several are big eaters.
Life cycle
Life Cycle of the Kākāpō
A lot of things about the kākāpō are still unknown, especially how long they live for. Here’s what we do know:
Kākāpō live life in the slow lane. They do everything more slowly than most birds, and live, on average, for 58 years and potentially to almost 90!
None of the kākāpō whose ages we do know have yet died of old age, even though most were discovered 15-30 years ago. In fact, it may not be known how long kākāpō live until some of the birds hatched during the Kākāpō Recovery programme die of old age. That might be several decades away.
Everything in the kākāpō’s life-style happens slowly. Males do not start breeding until they are about four years old, while females do not start until they are at least six years old. Even then, breeding does not take place every year.
Rather, it seems to be dependent on the availability of key food supplies, such as the fruiting of rimu trees, and will happen, on average, only every two to four years.
Kākāpō Habitat
It is known that kākāpō used to live from the far north of the North Island to the south of the South Island; from near sea-level to near the tops of mountains; from flat land to very steep land; from dry areas to wet areas; in cold areas and hot areas; in forests and in shrubland and tussock grasslands. This is known because sub-fossil remains have been found, along with discoveries in Maōri midden (kitchen waste-pile) sites.
If kākāpō used to be so widespread and adaptable, why can you not just go “down the road” and see a kākāpō, or have one living in your backyard?
These days, to think about habitat for kākāpō means thinking about offshore islands – protected areas of natural vegetation free from introduced mammals. A refuge, and hard to visit.
If there are any kākāpō left on the mainland of New Zealand now – which is highly unlikely – they will be in the remotest corners of wilderness; in a place like Fiordland National Park, where the last captures on the mainland occurred.
In 2013, the remaining kākāpō population live on three islands – Codfish Island (Whenua Hou), Little Barrier Island (Hauturu) and Anchor Island. In the past birds have been managed on a number of other islands around New Zealand, and it is possible that one or two of these islands may become management sites in the future.
- See more at: http://kakaporecovery.org.nz/kakapo-habitat/#sthash.15FAg949.dpuf
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