With more and more kākā spilling out of Zealan­dia and spend­ing their ne’er-do-well days riot­ing in the neigh­bor­ing sub­urbs, there are now nests out­side the fence. So the coun­cil has set up some nest­box­es to keep the new fam­i­lies safe, and in one, they’ve set up a live cam­era.

Today, the five chicks are only about a week old and grow­ing fast. Right at this very moment Mum has her head tucked under her wing try­ing to sleep while her brood are all a‑cluster of hyp­nic jerk­ing. Oth­er times they’re on their own, wait­ing to be fed; and lat­er, while their Mum feeds them, they’re all vora­cious lit­tle fluff bun­dles. And day by day they get big­ger, their feath­ers start­ing to show.

It’s all strange­ly fas­ci­nat­ing and involv­ing. We’re espe­cial­ly con­cerned about the one that’s a cou­ple days growth behind the oth­ers; and so we’ve end­ed up with this on the com­put­er for most evenings, check­ing in as we pass by.

If this kind of thing also floats your boat, you should check out the com­pe­ti­tion the Coun­cil is run­ning: choose a name for Mum and guess when the first chick will leave the nest! The win­ner gets to accom­pa­ny Matt-the-Ranger to the secret nest­box loca­tion to check up on the fam­i­ly in per­son. Entries close before Sun­day 11th.

Mean­while: will the lit­tleist kākā pros­per? Or will there need to be an inter­ven­tion? And does this year belong to the kākā?