Birds of New Zealand Birds of New Zealand The birds of New Zealand evolved into an avifauna that included a large number of endemic species (that is, species found in no other country). As an island archipelago New Zealand accumulated bird diversity and when Captain James Cook arrived in the 1770s he noted that the bird song was deafening. The mix includes species with unusual biology such as the kakapo which is the world's only flightless, nocturnal, lek (competitive display) breeding parrot, but also many species that are similar to neighboring land areas. A process of colonization, speciation and extinction has been at play
Kakapo areas of Fiordland. Kakapo seem to have preferred broadleaf or mountain beech and Hall's tōtara forest with mild winters and high rainfall, but the species was not exclusively forest-dwelling. All kakapo that were transferred to predator-free islands in the last decades have adapted well to any changes in environment and food plants. It seems that the kakapo – like many of New Zealand's bird species – has evolved to occupy an ecological niche normally filled by various species of mammal (the only non-marine mammals native to New Zealand are ). The kakapo is primarily nocturnal; it roosts under cover in