Kākā fledglings

Both parents feed their kākā fledglings. When young kākā first fledge it takes a while before they are able to fully fly, the wing muscles need to fully develop before they can start to perfect their flying skills. Like many of New Zealand's native birds, on encountering a predator they are likely to freeze, but as mammalian predators can smell them this is not an effective defence. This can make them easy pickings for pest predators such as weasels and stoats.

These four birds are about 45 days old and are in one of Zealandia’s old wooden nesting boxes.

Judi Lapsley Miller, C-C 4.0