I got a magazine (National Geographic 10/02) from the library and was reading about the kakapo, a flightless parrot. It says that there are only 86 of the birds left and is not an object of urgent conservation efforts.

Zita, have you ever seen one of these birds? They have some pictures of them, and they look like a parrot. The Kakapo Recovery website says they hop like a sparrow and growl like a dog. A most interesting bird.

Yes Linda, I have seen the Kakapo in captivity.

I don't know why National Geographic would say that as if you look on www.doc.govt.nz you will see that there is a special team in place to save these amazing birds. They are hoping to establish an Island to put them on to breed.

If you do a search on Kakapo, you will come up with several informative sites that gives interesting details on the history of these wonderful birds.

OOPS! I just looked at my post and realize that where the word "not" is should be "now." National Geographic does say there is intensive work underway to help the species survive. I hope so as so many of the flightless birds of NZ and I would guess some other parts of the world are already extinct and still others are threatened.

Easy enough mistake to make Linda, done it myself!

I have just come back from an awesome weekend in the bush! It was a 5 hour drive North to the Lakes District, and I stayed nearby at Lake Rotoiti and it was interesting to discover that the bush was in the process of being made a preditor free zone, one of several here in New Zealand.

Although I didn't see any Kekapo's, I had Tui's flitting around like Fantails - so tame. Never seen that before. Also the other birds were so tame and unafraid, and I put it down to the fact that the preditors had been delt with.

We are doing a lot here through DOC, a Government Department that takes care of the wildlife in New Zealand, creating preditor free Islands to encourage the breeding programns of the endangered birds, and that is proving very successful.

Wonderful bird life here, wonderful songs they sing too. We might not have the brightly coloured birds I admire so much in the Amazon, but if you could see the Kekapo, and the Kea, you would enjoy them just as much!