The Kākā Kura

The kākā kura

Kākā nestling "O-LK", showing normal feathering, being held by me for banding by Matu Booth. Photo by Linton Miller.

For over three years I've been searching for Zealandia's kākā kura - a very rare red colour morph (variation), seen and photographed by a lucky few, but not by me. And finally I saw a wee orange head emerge repeatedly from within a clump of muehlenbeckia to feed. She was unmistakable! With salmon-orange feathering on and around her head, rather than grey and yellow, and an overall colour of burnished mahogany, she was drop-dead gorgeous. And nothing like any other kākā I'd ever seen.

Such a shy character too, but given how much she ate, I suspect she has many hungry mouths to feed and so was willing to take the risk of being seen by humans. Kākā are not normally that shy, but I suspect only kākā kura with shy genes survived the onslaught of Victorian collectors, who were hell-bent on scoring yellow, white, and red kākā colour-morph skins for their pathetic but highly-prized collections. If only they had cameras rather than shot-guns...
And this shy girl is of special significance to me - she came from one of the nests I monitor and I'd even held and cuddled her when she was banded and micro-chipped back in 2010 (and this is why I left the leg-bands in the image rather than photo-shopping them out). Back then, her colouring was normal so it presumably only changed after her first moult - she wasn't seen again until 2013. So as she's a banded bird, we know for sure it's the same bird each time she shows up, and we do know a little bit about her history. 

Her mum "Pinky-B" was one of the first generation of kākā to hatch at Zealandia after the initial translocation. Her dad "Heath" hatched the year after. Both mum and dad are the progeny of the infamous Alfie Kākā and his first partner, making them brother and sister, albeit from different nests. Pinky-B and Heath were prodigious breeders too, so who knows what other interesting recessive genes and mutations are out there. Heath disappeared some years ago, but Pinky-B keeps going, though now she's partnered with her son/nephew and her fertility has dropped.

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"When I sing my heart ascends" - featuring a golden-tummied kākā fledgling.

​We also see vestiges of other colour variations in the Zealandia population with many of the nestlings having a band of gold feathers across their tummies. Initially just seen in the kids of just a couple of birds, the genes are spreading and are now seen quite commonly. Curiously and sadly, most seem to lose these feathers after their first moult  But I smile every time I see them and try my best not to tickle them for luck.

It's of no surprise, that I was inspired to add the kākā kura to my "Birds of a feather" series, which celebrates the colours of our native birds.
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If you're interested to know more about kākā colour morphs:

• John Gerrard Keulemans famous painting of a kākā kura and a normal-coloured kākā.
• Rod Morris's photo of kākā skins.

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