The superstar flightless parrots celebrating a big year

You might like to watch lots of different YouTubers and content creators, but what about... a livestream of a very rare parrot?

This year, over 100,000 people have tuned in to watch footage of a female kākāpō called Rakiura live from her nest on a small island in New Zealand.

Kākāpōs are very unusual birds that aren't found in the UK, for one thing these birds can't actually fly!

So why have so many New Zealanders and people around the world been following these weird and wonderful birds?

Read on to find out more..

The kākāpō is a large, green parrot, whose face looks a bit like an owl.

It's native to New Zealand and has lots of fans in the country.

The kākāpō has been given the title of New Zealand's annual bird of the year twice, and organisers were so worried that it would keep on winning that the kākāpō was banned from the competition in 2022.

The birds have got a big social media presence, including superstar kākāpōs like Rakiura and another bird called Sirocco, who is New Zealand's official spokesbird for conservation.

But with only around 236 kākāpōs around at the moment, they're listed as critically endangered on the IUCN's Red List, meaning they're at high risk of extinction in the wild.

This year, nearly all female kākāpōs who are old enough to have chicks have bred.

And many people were watching the Department of Conservation's YouTube livestream when kākāpō Rakiura's chicks hatched.

At the moment, Rakiura is caring for her new chick, Nora-A2-2026, that hatched on 2 March, with another chick given to a foster mum to allow her to focus on Nora.

The conservation team looking after the kākāpōs hope that the large number of births will bring their population to 300, which is huge news for the parrots.

Kākāpōs in islands in southern New Zealand rely a lot on eating fruit from the rimu tree, and they only breed and and have chicks when this tree produces its fruit, which is once every two to four years.

This year's high numbers of kākāpō chick births is thought to be down to lots of rimu berries having fruited this year.

But that's not the only cool thing about kākāpōs.

They're nocturnal, which means that they sleep during the day and are more active at night.

Also New Zealand's Department of Conservation say they likely hold two very cool records: