Kea: A Bogan-tastic Bird
Fri, 18 Sep 2009 9:50 pm – Posted by Mandy | 4 Comments
Guest blogger: Co-Campaign Manager for the Kea, Mandy Herrick
Ahem, before you go off and vote for, the best bird in the world - our lovely, conniving, uber intelligent kea - I’d like to acknowledge the good people at the Natural History Unit who provided the footage for this video; illustrator extraordinaire, Kieran Rynhart who penned the pictures, final-cut pro guru Davey Boy and sound recordist Phil Yule. Now go vote! http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/poll
The kea’s suddenly snuck his wily self onto the Homepage header for this contest as well as being first bird on the list. Hmmm - ya gotta watch him and his sneaky ways of gaining attention and votes!!
It eats hot pies and chips?! A true NZ bird!
Boy, last time I looked at the votes, kea was in a neck-and-neck race for second with takahe. It’s just voomed away in the past few days.
Kea crusaders should check out this wonderful NHNZ doco, ‘Kea - Mountain Parrot’:
http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/kea-mountain-parrot-1993
“This documentary tells the story of the inimitable kea. The ‘Clown of the Alps’ is heralded as the world’s smartest bird (its intelligence rivals a monkey’s). Kea are infamous on South Island ski fields and tramping tracks for their insatiable (and deconstructive) inquisitiveness. Curiosity almost killed the kea when it was daubed a sheep killer, and tens of thousands were killed for a bounty. Here extraordinary night footage reveals the ‘avian wolf’ in action. The award-winning film makes a compelling case for the charismatic kea as a national icon.”