Overview
Kākāpō are among the few birds that run a kind of ‘seduction market’. Several males choose an area, clear it of plants, and then dig out a shallow bowl with some short tracks leading to it. Each bird builds their own ‘track and bowl system’ which forms a communal display arena, sometimes stretching over 200 metres. This is known as a ‘lek’ after the Swedish word that means ‘play’.
Each male then displays itself in an attempt to attract and impress females which are scattered about in the bush for kilometres around. The males go to extravagant lengths to show off. Firstly they go into a kind of trance. Their eyes glaze over and they puff their chests up to a huge size to become booming machines rather than birds.
They make a loud deep booming or honking noise like a foghorn every 2 seconds or so for up to a minute. They then emerge from their trance-like state, look around and listen for any responses, only to resume booming again all through the night. These puffed up thoracic cavities, and the bowl they lie in, act as resonating chambers, amplifying the noise and sending it out into the surrounding hills and valleys. They may keep up this booming all night, every night for three to five months. On suitable nights they make sharper ‘chinging’ cries which probably help hens to home in on the males. Females are attracted for kilometres around and spend a long time choosing a mate from among the competing boomers.
Other ‘lekkers’ include peacocks, some kinds of grouse, several birds of paradise and manakins. A number of antelope species, deer, bats, fish, moths, butterflies and flies also exhibit this behaviour. In all these animals, the males gather in the breeding season, mark out territories close to each other, show off, and parade their attractions for visiting females. The females wander or fly about, spending a long time choosing ‘Mr Right’, then mating with him.
Usually most female kākāpō choose the same lucky guy. So it is he who fathers the majority of young birds in the next generation while most of the other males have wasted their time and energy in futile displays. Lekking males contribute only sperm to the female and will have nothing to do with rearing chicks. The female raises her chicks alone.
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database.