Meet the Locals: Sirocco the Kākāpō

One of the guys was swimming and then . . . here was Sirocco running along the rails at the end of the jetty, and then suddenly he stopped and he jumped and I’m going 'Aargh!' I thought I was gonna have to jump in after him, and do like CPR or mouth to mouth on a kākāpō.

– Department of Conservation ranger Leigh Joyce describes Sirocco joining in on a night swim

...they’re a night parrot . . . kākāpō, 'pō' means night, so the parrot of the night.

– Department of Conservation ranger Leigh Joyce describes the origins of the kākāpō's name

..the kākāpō is the heaviest parrot in the world, weighing up to three and a half kilograms — although when its ancestors first flew here, they may have been no larger than the budgerigar.

– Authors Rod Morris and Hal Smith, in 1988 book Wild South: Saving New Zealand's Endangered Birds, page 136