This Parrot is Too Heavy To Fly | South Pacific | BBC Earth

In these forests lives a bird that is about as un-bird-like as it is possible for a bird to be. It's nocturnal, though it sometimes wakes up before sunset. It has whiskers, so it can feel its way in the dark. It's a parrot, and weighing up to four kilos, it's the world's heaviest. And yes, you've guessed it, it can't fly. Meet the kakapo. Too heavy and short-winged to get airborne, it climbs trees instead. Kakapo were once one of the most successful and abundant herbivores in New Zealand, the Kiwi equivalent of our rabbit. In 1899, explorer Charlie Douglas wrote, they could be caught in the moonlight by simply shaking the tree or bush until they tumbled to the ground, like shaking down apples. Its favourite food is up above, the tiny seeds of the rimu tree. This fruit fuels kakapo reproduction, and they only breed when the trees produce a bumper crop, so about once every four years. Kakapo breed slower than any other bird, but they also live longer, sometimes more than 100 years. The male's song is as peculiar as the bird itself, more frog than parrot. It can be heard up to five kilometres away. In a breeding season, he will boom non-stop for eight hours every night for up to three months. But a female will only respond if there are plenty of rimu seeds about. So while these birds may nest in burrows like rabbits, unfortunately, they don't breed like them, and their numbers have dwindled dramatically. Today, fewer than 100 kakapo survive.