THE HISTORY OF THE KAKARIKI

The kakariki is originated from New Zealand. The name kakariki was given to him by the Maori and it means ‘little parrot’.

It is a very intelligent, curious en charming bird.

There are probably more nice qualities which are related to this bird.

The kakariki is a bird that lives of seeds and is crazy for sun flower seeds.

However, be careful with these, because to many sun flower seeds will make your bird fat. They also like all kinds of fruits.

There are not many birds left in wild life and in 1958 there were only about 103 birds left in the wild life in New Zealand.

It was in the seventies that breeders were able to help the authorities in Australia and New Zealand to re-introduce the birds into wild-life.

Unfortunately there are some sub-species extinct.

For aviculturists it’s not necessary to catch these birds in the wild, because there is enough breeding with these birds.

In the aviary they are very enterprising. They like to walk across the aviary ground and check out every corner.

It is the only species of birds who does not use his beak to walk up the chicken wire.

When they ensconce oneself, which happens in a nest box which measures  25cm high, 20cm deep and 20cm wide, it all is private and the female will stay with the young birds during nest box inspection.

The nest of eggs from the kakariki exists from 5 to 12.

It is not difficult to sex the birds. It is done by the beak. The cock has a wider and larger beak than the hen.

The opinions of the sexual maturity of the kakariki are quite different. Some say that the hen is fertile with 3 months and others say that it is when the hen is 1 year old.

What we have to avoid is to many nest of eggs in a breeding season.

There are 6 different species of kakariki’s.

Next to that there are several sub-species like: 

 1. green kakariki

 2. red fronted kakariki

 3. kermadec red fronted kakariki

 4. Chatham red fronted kakariki

 5. yellow fronted kakariki

 6. orange fronted kakariki

 7. black fronted kakariki

 8. brown kakariki

Also there were the: Antipodes red fronted kakariki

                                 Macquarie red fronted kakariki

                                  Norfolk red fronted  Kakariki

                                  Lord Howe red fronted Kakakriki

                                  New Caledonian red fronted Kakariki

(In some countries “fronted” is also known as “crowned”.)

The history of the Chatham yellow fronted kakariki

The Chatham yellow fronted kakariki has a yellow crown and lives on the isle of Chatham. This species who are very serious threatened, is to be found on the little island Mangere in the Chatham Island group, approximately thousand kilometres east of Christchurch. This bird is slightly different from the species of New Zealand because the red frontal line does not expand to the eyes.

Chatham kakariki

                                                                (source history Chatham kakariki : parakeet society)

Also with the yellow fronted kakariki we know a sub-species, namely the Chatham yellow fronted kakariki.

Extinct are for sure the black fronted kakariki and the brown kakariki and from the sub-species are extinct for sure the Lord Howe red fronted kakariki and the Macquarie red fronted kakariki.

In the Netherlands are the red fronted and yellow fronted kakariki the most common species.

Until now I have not been able to find out if there is an other species here in the Netherlands.

Every now and than an orange fronted kakariki seems to surface, but it appears to be a cross breeding of a yellow fronted and a red fronted kakariki.

                                  Antipoden Island kakariki

                                                                               photo coming from  www.parrot.co.nz

                                                        New Caledonian kakariki

                                                       photo coming from Parakeet society