Olive green kea parrots are trotting around a porch on a sunny day when one turns suddenly and bolts for the camera.
At the end of the two-minute video, the mischievous bird is caught in the act. As a child approaches, the parrot flies away and leaves the GoPro on the ground.
“I found it!” the boy exclaims as he picks up the camera.
The famously feisty kea parrots, native to New Zealand, are known for swiping people’s belongings to investigate. An endangered species, the birds are considered smart and curious — and often annoying to humans.
The parrot that filmed the GoPro video was in Fiordland National Park, where Alex Verheul and her family had just finished their first day of tramping — New Zealand-speak for backpacking — the Kepler Track. They were birdwatching on the porch of their vacation hut when Verheul’s son put the camera on the handrail, she told Television New Zealand’s “Seven Sharp.”
The family feared that the parrot would disappear with the camera into the brush. Luckily, Verheul told the TV program, it flew straight out from the porch and looped back to land in a tree. The family approached the parrots, using the birds’ chattering to guide them, until the parrots heard them coming and abandoned the GoPro.
As they searched for the camera, Verheul told “Seven Sharp,” her son decided to check a rocky area.
“He climbed up onto these rocks — he thought they looked like a good place for a bird to land,” she said. “And there it was, just sitting there, still filming.”
Verheul said she was shocked when she watched the beautiful footage and showed it to the other vacationers in their hut.
“Everyone was just intrigued,” she told “Seven Sharp.” “It was amazing. It was totally unexpected.”
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