Orange-fronted parakeet

Appearance

Its body is primarily a bright blue-green, with azure blue primary covert and leading-edge feathers on its wings. It has a distinctive (and diagnostic) orange frontal band with a lemon yellow crown, but this is absent in juvenile birds, that have a band of pale yellow. Colouration in males tends to be brighter, and juveniles are distinctly duller.

The orange-fronted parakeet is a medium-sized parrot, about 20 cm long.

Published measurements include mass about 47.

Range and habitat

The species is found in only three regions on New Zealand's South Island: the South Branch Hurunui River Valley, Hawdon River Valley, and the Poulter Valley. In addition, kākāriki karaka have been translocated to Te Hoiere / Maud Island, Oruawairua / Blumine Island, Chalky Island, Mayor Island / Tūhua, Pukenui / Anchor Island and the Brook Waimārama Sanctuary in Nelson. Several of these island populations no longer persist with only Blumine and Brook Waimārama Sanctuary carrying significant populations, and Anchor Island still in the establishment phase.

Restricted to a few valleys in the South Island, its population declined to around 200 in the 1990s, and it is considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and Nationally Critical by the New Zealand Threat Classification System. The parakeet has since been translocated to several islands and a fenced mainland site.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet and breeding

The parakeet is most often observed foraging, preening, and resting. The orange-fronted kākāriki typically feeds in the canopy of New Zealand beech trees, but also forages in low vegetation and on the ground.

During spring, invertebrates become a significant part of their diet, among them leaf roller moth and fungus moth caterpillars, other Lepidoptera, and aphids. During mast years, beech seeds become the dominant feature of their diet. Orange-fronted parakeets are monogamous and able to nest year-round, but peak breeding is between December and April.

In crisis

One population was reduced by 85% in 2001 due to predator irruption after a beech mast (a season of high production by southern beech). All three mainland populations come under the "Operation Ark" initiative, that controls stoat, possum, and rat populations through integrated pest management, with particular focus on reducing the effect of predator plagues. Individual nest sites are also protected from predators using metal tree-trunk wraps. This has been a successful programme and only one nest out of 153 has been lost to predators since 2003.

The local population had increased to 150 individuals in 2009, and 100–200 by 2011, but had declined to 50–150 individuals in 2013. Sixty-eight individuals were released on Maud Island in the Marlborough Sounds between 2007 and 2009, but in 2013, the island's population consisted of only 10–20 birds.

CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.

Orange-fronted parakeet is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Orange-fronted parakeet, Wikidata item Q690284. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.