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 present and the kakapo were never seen again. In 1912, three kakapo were moved to another reserve, Kapiti Island, north-west of Wellington. One of them survived until at least 1936, despite the presence of feral cats for part of the intervening period. By the 1920s, the kakapo was extinct in the North Island and its range and numbers in the South Island were declining. One of its last refuges was rugged Fiordland. There, during the 1930s, it was often seen or heard, and occasionally eaten, by hunters or roadworkers. By the 1940s, reports of kakapo were becoming scarce. In the