My friend Andrew Berry, who teaches evolutionary biology at Harvard, has gone to New Zealand and informs me that he’s taken some holiday snaps that he’s posted on Google+. I’ve picked one species from them: the kea (Nestor notabilis), an inquisitive and mischievous parrot with a bill so strong and dextrous that several of them can pick the chrome off a car. They also rip open the backs of sheep and consume the fat. As far as I know, they’re the world’s only semi-carnivorous parrot. According to the unimpeachable authority of Wikipedia, the kea is also “the world’s only alpine parrot.”
A snap from Arthur’s pass. Look at that beak!
A pair:
I love this proud beast. If it wrote an autobiography, would it be called I, Kea?
And, of course, they have to examine everything with an eye towards its destruction:
This must be the only sign of its kind. Note that it’s anatomically correct:
And, from the Auckland Museum, we have an artifact rather than an organism, but I couldn’t resist. This is the ice axe used by Edmund Hillary on his ascent of Mt. Everest (Andrew has also inadvertently taken a self portrait):
I love keas! I especially love their mischievous call!
“Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds” that came out in December included keas as one of the species they based the work on…
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6215/1320.full
Very nice! Those hiking shots don’t happen to be from Avalanche Peak do they?
Cheers!
Good call! Yes, Avalanche Pk. This pair of Kea has evidently decided that the constant stream of day hikers who choose to eat their lunch on the peak is a fine and sustainable food resource….
Cool, I thought those rocks looked very familiar!
http://www.berettaconsulting.com/barbarossa/WT_Big_Show/31%20Fisheyes/slides/WT%200200%20041-06%20New%20Zealand%20Arthurs%20Pass%20%20Avalanche%20Pk.html
http://www.berettaconsulting.com/barbarossa/WT_Big_Show/04%20New%20Zealand/WT%200200%20040-13%20New%20Zealand%20Mellor%20and%20Keas.jpg
http://www.berettaconsulting.com/barbarossa/WT_Big_Show/04%20New%20Zealand/WT%200200%20041-07%20New%20Zealand%20Me%20and%20Jeff%20Summit%20of%20Avalanche%20Peak.jpg
http://www.berettaconsulting.com/barbarossa/WT_Big_Show/04%20New%20Zealand/WT%200200%20041-11%20New%20Zealand.jpg
Cheers!
Nice! Thank you.
Wot, no hobbits???
Trolls ate’em all.
Cool, jblilie!
What, the hikers’ lunches, or the hikers?
I was gonna say…
😀
I can see why those birds would want to live in those mountains — they’re stunning!
b&
The bill on a friend’s red-bellied parrot is fearsome enough (when it lands on my shoulder). I’d hate to imagine a kea at close range, intent on conducting an experiment to address the hypothesis that my ear lobe contains fat.
Once I visited the Mt Bruce/Pukaha wildlife reserve, which had a couple of captive kea. They’d somehow managed to tear apart the tap (faucet) on the water line running into their cage, and were enjoying a bath in the spray. I have no idea how they could use their beaks to destroy a metal tap, given the difference in hardness between the materials – just leverage, I guess.
I’m probably not old enough to have a “bucket” list, but New Zealand is high up on it. Keas? Hobbiton? The mountains? The Fastest Indian, Burt Munro? A truly marvelous place.
It is, and I highly recommend it. One of the amazing things is: The landscape often changes dramatically in the (road distance) space of 50-100km.
One of my top 5 favorite places.
html fail! Only “often” was intended to be boldface.
Hot springs, forests without a lot of biting insects & thick underbrush, Huka Falls only because you’ll think it’s “Hooker Falls” assuming that’s what people are saying, North Country – I loved it up there – Russell and higher up.
Yes, indeed, the lot. I love NZ.
“I Kea”… LOL. That furniture would not stand a day against that rock-climbing-grade pick of a beak!
Great photos… love those birds and their marvelous intelligence.
The last picture made me think of a sign: ‘Break glass in case of zombie attack’.
Just staying mentally prepared.
Love these photos. So much personality in those keas.
When I visited Arthur’s Pass I saw several Keas including one that was having a feed from a baby’s nappy (diaper). Evidently an omnivorous bird.
Don’t feed the kea! Our food is very bad for them so they die from heart disease. They don’t bother to find their normal nutritious diet of fruit, seeds and insects.
And then the gangs of young kea become very destructive and annoying because they have time on their beaks. We (me and husband) were going to camp on Cascade Saddle but the Dept of Conservation warned us that kea mobbed tents pitched up there. We did camp further down in the Dart valley but they found at dusk and dawn. Believe me, the cackling of a gang of kea demanding food is not good for sleep, as well as the worry they would damage our tent. They came within arms reach, very different behaviour than normal in the wild.
They’re my favourite bird. Inquisitive, mischievous and (unfortunately) destructive. Stories I’ve heard of kea include letting car tyres down (they can unscrew the valve cap and are fascinated by the blast of air when they press the valve plunger with their beak), using steep iron roofs as a slide, whoosh-bump, and removing car windshield wipers.
I saw some kea temporarily housed in an old monkey cage at Auckland Zoo, there were a few short logs 6″ long and 3″ diameter on the concrete floor, and a gang of several keas was co-operating to roll a log forward and backwards across the floor, just for the hell of it.
Such marvelous birds! Ya gotta love psittacine expressions–simultaneously smart and humorous. And look at that gorgeous plumage!