Ever seen a wild Kea?

I hadn't either until this spring, when I went to my bucket-list destination, New Zealand's South Island.
These birds are the world's only alpine parrots.
They are quite "cheeky" as the New Zealander's say.
Kea's will take the weather stripping from around a vehicle's windshield.
One Kea stole a visitor's passport and flew off with it.
These busy birds have been known to pull out bolts in doors of hiker's huts up in the remote mountain trails, leaving hikers stranded in the hut, until other hikers come by to let them out.
The Kea's call is their name-"kea" and they have bright orange feathers under their wings, contrasting their beautiful green plumage.
They are now protected as their numbers greatly decreased due to sheep ranchers thinking they'd do damage to the lambs.

Gorgeous shot Jill! I have seen some specials featuring them. Their unbelievable!

Love that shot Jill. I have heard similar things about them as well.

Nice looking bird, seen a small video clip on those where they bent up a bunch of car antennas in a parking lot. lol

I watched a National Geographic show on the Kea, hosted by Mike Row. It was really interesting because they were saying that they have pretty much evolved to the way that they are now. More ground parrots, and not so much take to flight anymore. That's really awesome! I would have had a heart attack with excitement if i'd have seen one! Wow, that must have been an unbelievable trip and experience. Great Photo by the way, and thank's a lot for sharing it.

I saw that show too! So glad that you could go there and take live pics of them!

I'll have look for that show on Keas...maybe on Netflix....
The birds of NZ are pretty much their only indigenous creatures.
One bird we didn't see in the wild, but heard, was the tui, a.k.a. the 'bell bird'.
In addition to other bird calls, it even imitates cell phones and car alarms!

Here are a bunch of videos: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=kea&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADBS_en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#

I love this one!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRW4ztbY8Ok

What on earth do you do if a bird steals your passport?? Imagine the looks you'd get from officials!

oh man! smart birds. But that last part was scary.

Sorry I didn't watch it till the end. :-(

Jill, great picture of the Kea. I too was lucky enough to see one in the wild on my only visit to New Zealand. My picture doesn't match yours, but it was pleasing to get the chance to photograph it. I took this photo on the top of Arthur's Pass in New Zealand's South Island back in 1991.

Kennedy

I'm on dial-up, out here in the sticks, so hopefully I'll be able to watch those videos-
Thanks Juney Bug & Pelletory!
Kennedy- that's great you got to see one on Arthur's Pass; we took the train to Greymouth, so didn't get out on that part of the trip. I saw this kea at a parking area right next to Homer Tunnel on the way to Milford Sound. Here he is checking out what part of this car he'd like to remove.

Jill, the only other Kea I saw (outside a zoo) was also at the entrance to Homer Tunnel. I got a picture of sorts, but hardly worth displaying. That was back in 1991, so perhaps unlikely to be the same one LOL!

Ken