Flightless Parrot in the world
The only flightless and heavy parrot in the world is the Kakapo. Kakapo is found only in New Zealand. It is translated to "owl face soft-feathered" in Latin. It also called by the name of owl parrot or night parrot.
It has very soft feathers than other birds and owl-like prominent facial disc feathers. They use their short wings for balance and support rather than flapping. Even though they can't fly, they get around. The kakapo has strong legs which makes them an excellent hiker and climber. On the ground, they move around with a jog-like gait. They can also climb tall trees and use their wings to help "parachute" to the forest floor.
Kakapos freezes when danger is near. The defence technique works well when the predators use sight to hunt but it does not work with hunters who use sense of smell to find prey. Kakapos stay in the trees or on the ground during the day and only become active at night.
It has a highly developed sense of smell which useful for its nocturnal lifestyle. It also has a unique musky-sweet odour which helps the birds find each other. But unfortunately, it helps to predators find Kakapos.
Kakapos are friendly type bird. Both the Māori and early European settlers kept kakapos as pets. Even wild Kakapos also know how to approach, climb, and follow people. Kakapo breeding season is summer and autumn. During the breeding season, males are constantly searching for the best mountains and digging bowl-shaped excavations, which helps to increase their mating calls. To attract females, males emit loud, low-frequency "booms" that can travel up to 3 miles. After 20-30 booms, they switch to a high-pitched metallic "ching.". It lays eggs once every 2 to 4 years. 1-4 eggs are laid in shallow depression in soil or rotten tree, which repeatedly turned-over before and during incubation.
They're critically endangered. The kakapo's problems began with Māori settlers, and intensified when Europeans arrived. Both groups cleared large areas of the kakapo's habitat and brought predators like cats, rats, and stoats that the kakapo had no defences against. In the 1980s, the New Zealand Department of Conservation implemented a Kakapo Recovery Plan. The Plan involved the rounding up and relocation of kakapos to predator-free islands, setting up supplementary feeding stations for the birds, and sometimes artificial incubation of eggs and hand-raising of chicks. The effort averted the kakapo's extinction, but they are still in danger.
- Kakapos are one of the longest-lived birds. Their life expectancy is over 90 years.
- Kakapos are strong birds. Unlike other land birds, the kakapo can store large amounts of energy as body fat.
- Kakapo’s is the world's heaviest parrot. It grows 24 inches tall and it weighs between 4 and 9 lbs.
- The kakapo’s calls have rung through New Zealand’s night sky for as many as 30 million years.
- There are only 201 Kakapo alive today.
- George Edward Grey, the English ornithologist who first described the kakapo in 1845 that Kakapo's behaviour towards him and his friends was "more like that of a dog than a bird."
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