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