The nominate species of this New Zealand parrot is the South Island Kaka, Nestor m. meridionalis while the North Island Kaka is the subspecies Nestor m. sepentrionalis.
I spent a few hours in Hamilton Zoo’s walk through aviary (apparently the largest in Australasia) photographing the North Island Kaka and was really pleased with some of the results, but thought that I would never get that close to a wild Kaka.
About a week later, I travelled to Stewart Island and was amazed by the sheer number of Kaka there. Only the South Island Kaka resides there, and they are plentiful on the island and it’s smaller off shore islands. At one stage, there were four all lined up in a row on the handrail of a deck that was part of a shop I was perusing through.
I got twice as close to these wild birds as I did to the aviary captives hence got a few portrait shots in as well.
While there are more Kaka than you can count in this area, on the mainland, their numbers are declining due mainly to possum and stoat predation.
The first photo here is of the North Island subspecies and the second is of the nominate South Island Kaka.
Note the more extensive white feathering on the head of the South Island Kaka.
In general the South Island Kaka is larger and slightly brighter, but the head colour is the simplest way to differentiate between the two.