the kea, an alpine parrot

On the way home from Milford Sound, we stopped to look at a waterfall. In the parking lot there were four keas, which are cheeky, smart, and friendly birds. They are the only alpine parrots in the world. When they fly, you can see the underside of their wings, which are red. We kept trying to get a photo of a kea in flight, but couldn't do it.

Dave had read that you want to keep them away from your car, because they will destroy the plastic around the rear view mirrors and windows. In the first photo below, you can see one of them picking at the plastic on top of a piece of metal on the pickup truck.

They kept flying/hopping from one truck to the other, but we never did get a picture of them in flight. When we got back to our car after walking around for a bit, one of them came right up to me obviously trying to get a handout.