South Island Trip - Part 4 - kakariki karaka on Blumine Island

I’ve come to the final blog post about Blumine Island, there’s still more of the trip to come, but this is the most exciting part! The lure of Blumine Island is that it is one of the only accessible places in NZ where the very rare and elusive Orange-fronted Parakeet. Also know as kakariki karaka, these small green parrots entice visitors from all over the world to visit Blumine just to get a glimpse of them.

On our way back from sheltering from the rain, Hannah and I hung around the waterfall nearest the campsite and listened for any parakeet-like chatter. We only had 10 minutes before the boat was due to pick us up from the island, and we were watching a rather cute Weka chick walking around when we heard it, the chatter of a Kakariki! We both looked at each other in excitement and tried to listen to where the sounds were coming from, we looked up and saw them, two kakariki, one was a chick and it was being fed by it’s parent. It was so exciting to see, especially knowing how rare these birds are, with an estimated population of only 100 they are one of our rarest forest birds.

I managed to get some ok photos, I wish it was better weather, but atleast it had stopped raining by then! Birds are never easy to photograph, and these are small parrots, add dark clouds, backlighting, and camouflaged colouring, and it’s never going to be easy, but I'm grateful to have seen them, my last time on Blumine Island a few years ago was sunny but I didn’t manage to spot them, so here are the photos I got!