Description
Kokako are a sleek blue-grey forest bird of moderate size with distinctive and colourful
fleshy wattles below the beak and a velvet-black "lone-ranger" mask. Their wings are very
small and weak for a bird of their size, kokako are limited to short flights and glides,
and prefer to get about by running and jumping through the forest canopy on their long black legs.
Two subspecies of kokako have been described. The most obvious difference
between the two subspecies is their wattle colour: North Island birds have blue wattles,
while the South Island subspecies has orange wattles.
Kokako belong to a family of birds found only in New Zealand; the wattlebirds or Callaeidae.
Their origins are ancient and their relationship to other birds is, as yet, unknown.
Their Family: Callaeidae
The wattlebirds are an ancient family of unknown affinities, and these days its members are
all but driven from the New Zealand mainland. The huia with its striking black and white plumage,
once highly favoured by London milliners, is now extinct; tieke (saddlebacks) are a lively and
striking bird, now confined to islands free of pest mammals, and, at least for now, we must assume
that the South Island kokako is probably extinct since there have been no verified recent sightings.
Song
It's pretty special and hard to describe so check it out on this site! Even here we cannot do it justice;
there is no getting around it, you need to get into a kokako forest at dawn to truly appreciate its magic.
The song is long and very loud - it is flung by the birds from the tops of emergent trees at dawn; it fills
the sky and then settles like a blanket down through their forest territories. The variety and tones of
the organ like notes vary from region to region; though they're still distinctively kokako to our ears the
birds themselves are notably less responsive to kokako from other sites.
Touch here to hear a kokako pair sing. (68 kb mp3 file) This
song was recorded from a pair living near Lake Rotoehu in the Bay of Plenty, North Island, New Zealand.
Kokako song differs somewhat from place to place, and every population has its own unique sound. This example of
song from Otamatuna, in Te Urewera National Park is distinctly
different from the Lake Rotoehu song. (264 kb mp3 file)
To hear more songs, visit the song research page.
Ecology
Kokako hold territories of 4 to 12 hectares, either as single birds or as pairs.
They remain in territories throughout the year; pair-bonds may last for many years.
Kokako are omnivores. In winter they feed primarily on leaves and fern-fronds along with whatever
fruit and invertebrates they can find; as spring approaches they take more nectar and young leaf-buds,
then during summer the diet switches almost entirely to the abundant forest fruit and invertebrates such
as bag-moths, scale-insects, stick-insects, caterpillars and weta (a large NZ cricket like animal).
Kokako play an important ecological role in the dispersal of large-seeded forest plants.
Breeding is usually from November to February, though in years of abundant food the season stretches
from October to May. Until recently it was thought that kokako bred once each year, but now pairs are
known to have made up to five breeding attempts and have fledged three clutches of chicks in a single season.
The female builds the nest over several days, although the male may occasionally contribute materials.
Nests have been found 2 to 36 metres above the ground, in dense foliage, well concealed from aerial
predators. The nest generally has a twig base, with a woven mix of moss, lichen, rotten wood, filmy ferns,
epiphytic orchid, and finally treefern scales forming the bowl.
The female lays one to three eggs, which are
pinkish grey with brown and mauve spots and blotches, and these take about 18 days to hatch. Only the
female incubates eggs and broods young, although the male feeds the female during incubation and also
feeds the growing chicks. Nestlings have bright pink wattles and take 30 to 45 days to fledge.
Kokako will continue to feed and care for their young for one to 12 months after fledging, but eventually
the young are evicted to find territories of their own. Wattles change from pink to blue during this first
year.
