The orange-fronted parakeet has had another successful breeding season.

New Zealand's rarest forest bird is making a comeback with the most successful breeding season in more than a decade.

The orange-fronted parakeet (kākāriki karaka) was thought to have been extinct until 25 years ago, but is now thriving in parts of Canterbury.

The Department of Conservation (DOC) has been monitoring the birds in Arthur's Pass National Park and Lake Sumner Forest Park, Hurunui, and recorded a significant population growth.

Barbara Armstrong/Mokihi Trust Matagouri provides an important food source for New Zealand's rarest parakeet.

Team leader Megan Farley said in the 12 years she had been involved in monitoring the parakeet, it was the best result she had seen.

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Up to 100 kakariki, many of them unbanded, were seen feasting on matagouri seeds during monitoring, she said.

The success follows on from a spike in numbers last year, helped by an explosion in beech seeds, which doubled the population to about 300.

Forest and Bird Canterbury regional manager Nicky Snojink said the results were great news for New Zealand's rarest parakeet and showed the benefits of pest control.

The success also emphasised the significance of protecting matagouri (discaria toumatou), as an important food source for the birds.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/STUFF The remaining populations live in Canterbury.

"As the kākāriki population increases, ensuring there is an adequate natural food source to sustain the population is critical."

Snojink said it was worrying that more matagouri was cleared in Canterbury than any other region in the country, with a total of 1457ha lost across the district to farmland.

"In the Canterbury high country, matagouri forests which normally thrive on old river braided terraces, are disappearing fast by spraying and clearing to expand grazing for sheep and cattle."

The remaining populations of the bird are all within a 30km radius in beech forests of upland valleys within the two national parks, she said.

Although now confined to these few valleys, historic records suggest that in the later years of the 1800s, when beech seed was bountiful, the parakeets would have a breeding boom and disperse onto the Canterbury Plains.

If food is plentiful, the orange-fronted parakeet can breed for 18 months straight.