The Garrulous Kaka.

Our kaka parrot is called by the scientific name Nestor Occidentalis, Nestor, I take it, connotes wisdom! Wasn't there a very wise old Greek counsellor the first of that name? But Mr. Kaka, I contend, is quite wrongly labelled by the bird-men. His ways are not those of the wise old bird whose praises are preserved in the little verse:

“A wise old owl lived in a wood,

He never spoke more than he should,

The less he spoke the more he heard;

Why aren't we all like that wise old bird.” No, nothing like that for the kaka, no matter how owl-like and sage he may look with that old hooked beak of his. There is no noisier bird in all our bush. He can't for the life of him keep a still tongue in his head, and the more he talks the more easily is he fooled and captured by the pot-hunter.

In the Urewera forest, or parts of it, the kaka's is the voice most often heard. It is a screech, a rasp, and it is heard all day long. It quite annoyed an old Maori with whom I was once tramping over the Huiarau Range to Waikaremoana. The brown parrots were all around us, screeching their “Ka-Ka-Ka.” At last he was provoked to retaliate. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “you are like a lot of old women with your ‘Ka-Ka-Ka!’ Be quiet, you silly old women!”

It is easy to collect a flock of the birds around you by imitating their screech. And that is when the Maori hunter gets busy. No bird of the bush is more easily snared or knocked over with a stick, and none makes better eating, not even the pigeon. But hist and belay! They are on the protected list, so hands off the talkative old kaka, who so belies his classic beak of wisdom.