Question: @Helen what is your faviourate bird?

Helen Gath answered on 19 Jun 2014:

Ooh, that’s tricky there are so many! About 10,000 different species to exact. But I think there are two which I really love.

Shearwaters are a type of seabird, which already interests me because this makes them hard to study and that intrigues me! They make nest nests in burrows in the ground, and in the hundreds! There can be holes absolutely everywhere in the ground all full of shearwaters, but their best feature is that at nigh they sit in their burrows and sing. I say sing, but it’s the funniest sound ever; “oooooooh…….eeeeeeeeeeeh……..aaaaaaaaah……..aaawiweeeeeeeeeeee” I can’t sound if they sound more like ghost or a group of grannies all gossipping…..”oooh no she didn’t”……”ahooooo yes she did. Makes me chuckle just thinking about them.

Then I really love the kakapao, a flightless bird in New Zealand. I like it because not only because it has been a great conservation success, but it has quite unusual behaviour. When the male wants to find a female, it makes a deep bowl shape in the ground as, and uses this to echo it’s call to attract females. But what’s really cool is that the male decorate the nest to make it more attractive! It collects flowers, sparkly stones, pretty leaves, and dots the all a round the nest. A man with decorating skills….I love it !