It’s the middle of the night, it would be pitch black if it weren’t for the pale glow from the moon. The night is still, but distantly a deep booming sound can be heard. It’s airy and sounds almost unnatural.

This is the sound the male kakapo makes to attract females. They dig small bowls into the earth to help send the sound further, as they act like amplifiers. The male puffs up in his hole and booms all night long, every night for the three months of the kakapos’ breeding season. The male does this by inflating a thoracic sac, which allows him to increase his volume. They will often build their bowls next to a tree, bank or rock face, which also helps reflect the sound out. His booms can be heard from one to five kilometers away, depending on whether it is a still night or a windy one, in which the wind will carry his booms further.

Kakapo are flightless, and so have evolved into big parrots, with males growing to around 2kg in weight. Despite this they can easily walk two kilometres in one night and are amazing tree climbers. However they have suffered greatly at the introduction of mammalian pests to New Zealand. Kakapo are big, have a very strong scent, and their mating calls can be heard from kilometres away. This has made them extremely easy prey to cats, stoats and ferrets. Pre-human arrival to New Zealand the only predator the kakapo had to worry about was the now extinct Haast’s eagle. Eagles hunt by sight so none of these features that make this parrot so vulnerable to mammalian predators would have been a disadvantage in their evolution, rather, with no land predators these adaptations were advantageous.

There are most likely no kakapo left on the mainland, though there is evidence they once used to occupy habitats throughout the whole of New Zealand. With only around 125 kakapo left they are highly endangered and live on only a handful of predator free islands, including Codfish Island (Whenua Hou), the most well known of these islands. There is limited access to these islands, which aids conservationists in their efforts to save this species.

Sirocco is the ‘poster bird’ for the recovery program. He burst to fame in this footage of him in Last Chance to See with zoologist Mark Carwardine and actor Stephen Fry.

Sirocco was hand-reared and so has imprinted on humans, making him ineffective for the breeding program in that he associates himself more with humans than other actual female kakapos. So as a result this has actually made him a great bird for the advocacy of his species, and is somewhat of a celebrity, often travelling all over New Zealand in promotion for the Kakapo Recovery program.