A Wellingtonian emerging from a swim on the city\u2019s south coast.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s enough to make you want to check into a mountainside monastery and live out the rest of your days raking sand. But thankfully there\u2019s still one thing worth living for. Look up. What\u2019s that you see? That\u2019s right, the rimu trees are in mast, producing a bountiful harvest of small, fleshy, red and above all nutritious berries. And you know what that means: it\u2019s k\u0101k\u0101p\u014d fuck season.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what?\u201d the ignorant or peabrained might reply. \u201cBirds have sex all the time.\u201d Let me explain it to you. Unlike some animals that have evolved to do things like survive, k\u0101k\u0101p\u014d have opted instead to become a screeching<\/a>, smelly, groundbound predator magnet with an impossibly convoluted approach to breeding. They reserve their boning for when rimu are producing berries<\/a> and that only happens every two to four years. This year could be one of the best harvests in decades<\/a> and it couldn\u2019t come at a better time. The breeding population of female k\u0101k\u0101p\u014d is at 83<\/a>, the largest since conservation efforts began 30 years ago, and the big green parrots are raring to go.<\/p>\n As the rest of us have been curling up into a cocoon of despair, male k\u0101k\u0101p\u014d have been standing in a forest yelling until someone comes along to have sex with them. Their booming mating calls rang out over three small southern islands<\/a> all January. The resulting eggs have provided some of the only deposits of hope in an expanse of sewagey seas, disaster and authoritarian decline.<\/p>\n The world has grasped those deposits with both hands. \u201cWorld\u2019s fattest parrots set for mating bonanza\u201d,<\/a> reads The Washington Post. \u201cBerry nice to meet you\u201d<\/a>, says The Guardian. \u201cBumper fruit crop could lead to huge mating season.\u201d Public interest is so great, the Department of Conservation (DOC) has set up a 24\/7 live stream<\/a> of the nest of one k\u0101k\u0101p\u014d, Rakiura, on Whenua Hou\/Codfish Island. Environmental journalist Ellen Rykers explains why k\u0101k\u0101p\u014d shagging season delivers such a much-needed dopamine boost even outside the parrot community. \u201cIn an era where it feels like everything is going to shit, there is something pure and joyous about a bunch of parrots having a feast, getting it on, and making cute babies,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not just any parrots. K\u0101k\u0101p\u014d are almost perfectly calibrated to go extinct. They very nearly did, with the population dropping to just 51 in the mid-90s. This breeding season is a big leap forward on a long comeback trail. Department of Conservation k\u0101k\u0101p\u014d recovery manager Deidre Vercoe says 170 eggs have been laid so far, with the first chicks expected to hatch soon, though not all eggs will be fertilised and not all chicks will make it to fledgling. She says hope for the future underpins a lot of the hard work and dedication it\u2019s taken to get to this point. Rykers feels the same way.\u00a0 \u201cWe love an underbird story \u2013 a species overcoming the odds to survive. It feels like right now we all need a laugh, and something to believe in. Why not a future where we have more big, beautiful, booming k\u0101k\u0101p\u014d bumbling through the bush?\u201d she says.<\/p>\nRakiura laying an egg on camera.<\/p>\n