Field notebook
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Field notebook
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Animal profile
Strigops habroptilus
The kākāpō is a large, flightless, nocturnal parrot with moss-green plumage and a strong sweet odour. Every living bird is individually named and tracked. The total population has been counted in the low hundreds since intensive management began, and each breeding season is managed almost bird by bird.
Male kakapo excavate shallow depressions on ridges and inflate a thoracic air sac to produce a deep boom. The bowl helps project a note low enough to travel kilometres through forest, but so low that females struggle to locate its source.
Kākāpō do not nest every year. On Whenua Hou and Anchor Island they breed in step with the mast fruiting of rimu, a podocarp that produces a heavy crop only every few years, which caps how fast the population can recover.