Eileen Mayo

The kākāpō is one of only two known nocturnal parrots. It is also the world’s heaviest parrot, the only flightless species and the only one almost entirely plant-eating. Ground-dwelling, it moves across the forest floor and open spaces in short bursts, sometimes running, and clambers up moss-covered trunks and epiphytic branches, feeding on leaves, seeds and fruit, including sweet kakaha berries. In 1976, when Eileen Mayo painted this for the Gregg’s® Jelly Rare and Endangered Birds of New Zealand collectors’ card series, only eighteen kākāpō were known to survive. All of these were male birds in Te Rua-o-Te-Moko Fiordland, placing the species then on the brink of extinction. The following year, a previously unknown population, estimated at 100 to 200 birds including breeding females, was discovered on Rakiura Stewart Island, forming the basis of the modern recovery programme

(Bird Land: Te Kāhui Manu 15 August 2026 – 8 February 2027)