The kākāpō, or night parrot, is one of the world’s most unusual birds.
It’s a giant flightless parrot whose fortunes are tied to the rimu tree and to a dedicated team of kākāpō rangers from the New Zealand Department of Conservation.
Join Alison Ballance on an audio adventure through the biggest kākāpō breeding season on record. In part 1 of this remarkable story we meet the rare bird and discover the night sounds of Whenua Hou / Codfish Island with Deidre Vercoe, Andrew Digby and Tane Davis.
Stella-2-B is a juvenile from the bumper 2019 kākāpō breeding season. Photo: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Jake Osborne / DOC
You can subscribe to the Kākāpō Files as a podcast - for free - at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, iHeartRADIO and RadioPublic.
If you would like to know more about kākāpō you can follow the Kākāpō Recovery Programme on Facebook and Instagram. Kākāpō scientist Andrew Digby is on Twitter. Or check out the book Kākāpō - rescued from the brink of extinction by Alison Ballance.
Listen to the full series
Voice of the Kākāpō 1: Kākāpō - night parrot
Voice of the Kākāpō 2: Whenua Hou, kākāpō island
Voice of the Kākāpō 3: Nest checks
Voice of the Kākāpō 4: Promise
Voice of the Kākāpō 5: Kākāpō sperm takes to the air
Voice of the Kākāpō 6: Kākāpō chicks
Voice of the Kākāpō 7: Dark days
Voice of the Kākāpō 8: Success
