Hillary McGregor releases a kakapo. Photo / Deidre Vercoe

Kakapo are back in the North Island for the first time in a decade, after seven of the rare birds were released on Little Barrier Island in the Hauraki Gulf yesterday.

The Department of Conservation moved the flightless and critically endangered native parrots from Codfish and Anchor Islands in Southland.

The department’s Southland kakapo programme manager, Deidre Vercoe Scott, said the four female and four male birds were taken by helicopter to Invercargill, where they boarded a commercial flight to Auckland.

How Mary and Joseph would have handled the Birth of Jesus in todays technological World.

Very clever.

Frisky Sirocco gets owl for diversion

KIRAN CHUG

HEAD CASE: Sirocco, the head-humping kakapo, gets help from American bird expert Barbara Heidenreich at Zealandia.

His frisky antics made him a global internet sensation, but Sirocco’s days of humping human heads could be numbered after a stint of behavioural training.

A stuffed owl, kauri cones and macadamia nuts are among the items in the bag of tricks being used by a specialist American animal trainer who has come to New Zealand specifically to work with the endangered kakapo.